Madison and Jefferson (141 page)

54.
Adam Rothman,
Slave Country: American Expansion and the Origins of the Deep South
(Cambridge, Mass., 2005), 145–54, describing the complexities Jackson, Claiborne, and area planters tried to work through in putting slaves and free blacks in a combat zone; Andrew Burstein,
The Passions of Andrew Jackson
(New York, 2003), chap. 4; Stagg,
Mr. Madison’s War
, 487–97; Latimer,
1812
, 369–77.

55.
New-York Evening Post
, February 7 and March 22, 1815; Freneau to JM, March 3, 1815,
JMP-LC.

56.
Burstein,
Passions of Andrew Jackson
, 118–19, 122; Joseph T. Hatfield,
William Claiborne: Jeffersonian Centurion in the American Southwest
(Lafayette, La., 1976), 303–4; Jackson to Claiborne, February 5 and February 6, 1815; Alexander Dallas to Jackson, April 12, 1815,
Papers of Andrew Jackson
, ed. Sam B. Smith, Harold D. Moser, et al. (Knoxville, Tenn., 1980–), 3:270–73, 344–46.

57.
TJ to JM, March 23, 1815,
RL
, 3:1763–65.

58.
Dearborn to TJ, February 27, 1815; TJ to Dearborn, March 17, 1815,
TJP-LC.
The salutation is to “My dear General, friend, & antient colleague.”

59.
Of those who did not welcome the treaty, British Admiral George Cockburn, who had watched the President’s House burn, was filled with lament. He had “Jonathan” nearly caught in a trap, he thought, and wanted only a little more time to finish him off. Along with Admiral Alexander Cochrane, he was poised to strike in Georgia, preparing to enlist ex-slaves and Indians to attack the interior. Amid the blackened buildings of the federal city, Secretary Monroe was ready with a new strategy for the subjugation of Canada but had to shelve his plans. See Latimer,
1812
, 392–94; on Clay, see Merrill D. Peterson,
The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay, and Calhoun
(New York, 1987), 45–46.

60.
“An Honorable Peace, the Result of a Glorious War,”
Providence Patriot
, February 25, 1815, citing an article in the
National Advocate.
On the postwar change in temperament around America, and the renewal of energy and individual enterprise, see Steven Watts,
The Republic Reborn: War and the Making of Liberal America, 1790–1820
(Baltimore, Md., 1987).

61.
[Alexander Dallas],
An Exposition of the Causes and Character of the Late War with Great Britain
(Philadelphia, 1815), 70, 73. Just prior to the start of the war, Richard Rush
had written from Washington to Dallas, then in Philadelphia, urging him to compose a pamphlet in support of going to war: “An able, lucid, view of the whole ground of our dispute with Great Britain, with an animated exhortation to crown it, would explode through the nation like Paines common sense, and do as much if not more good … I would say—you, Mr. Dallas, can turn off such an exciter in a few days.” Rush to Dallas, May 26, 1812, George M. Dallas Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

62.
An Exposition of the Causes and Character of the Late War with Great Britain
, 69–70, 77–78. In fact, a good many slaves did escape and cross over to the British lines.

63.
JM to TJ, March 12, 1815,
RL
, 3:1762–63.

64.
TJ to JM, March 23, 1815,
RL
, 3:1763–64.

65.
Alexandria Gazette
, May 3, 1815.

66.
Monroe to TJ, April 26, 1815,
TJP-LC;
Monroe to JM, April 30, 1815,
JMP-LC;
Brant, 6:385.

67.
John Adams to Richard Rush, January 7, 1814, in J. H. Powell, ed., “Some Unpublished Correspondence of John Adams and Richard Rush, 1811–1816,”
Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography
61 (January 1937): 35–36. In defense of his declaration of war, Madison’s views on national sovereignty were well captured in his letter to Benjamin Ludlow of New Jersey: “When the U.S. assumed & established their rank among the nations of the Earth, they assumed and established a common Sovereignty on the high seas, as well as an exclusive sovereignty within their territorial limits. The one is as essential as the other, to their Character as an Independent nation.” JM to Ludlow, July 25, 1812,
PJM-PS
, 5:82.

68.
Madison’s recognition of the key role of New England in recruiting was reflected in a letter to Richard Cutts in 1812: “But what are we to do as to the main expedition towards Montreal, under the maneuvering counteractions of Strong & Griswold [two New England governors], and the general chill diffused throughout the region from which the requisite force was to be drawn?” See JM to Cutts, August 8, 1812,
PJM-PS
, 5:127–28; also see Lawrence Dilbert Cress, “ ‘Cool and Serious Reflection’: Federalist Attitudes toward the War of 1812,”
Journal of the Early Republic
7 (Summer 1987): 123–45.

69.
Before the war began, Jones, as a sea captain, believed that American ships should resist British attempts at impressment. Ship captains should consider negotiation first, he wrote, but if that failed, they should refuse to hand over the sailors “by firm and cool resistance,” followed, if necessary, by “force of arms.” See Eckert, “William Jones: Mr. Madison’s Secretary of War,” 172–73.

70.
For Madison’s critique of British use of “the merciless savages under their influence,” see his “Annual Message to Congress, November 4, 1812,”
PJM-PS
, 5:428; for the larger debate over civilized warfare and international law, see Robin F. A. Fabel, “The Laws of War in the 1812 Conflict,”
Journal of American Studies
14 (August 1980): 199–218.

71.
Ketcham, 584–85; “Memoirs of a Senator from Pennsylvania,” 373.

72.
Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson
, comp. E. Millicent Sowerby, 5 vols. (Washington, D. C., 1952–59); Malone, 6:171–80.

73.
Ketcham, 604; Malone, 6:144–45; James H. Broussard,
The Southern Federalists, 1800–1816
(Baton Rouge, La., 1978), 185–86, and chap. 23; C. Edward Skeen,
1816: America Rising
(Lexington, Ky., 2003), chap. 4. To Virginia state legislator Charles
Yancey, Jefferson voiced his fears with characteristic animation: “Like a dropsical man calling out for water, water, our deluded citizens are clamoring for more banks, more banks.” See TJ to Yancey, January 6, 1816,
TJP-LC.

74.
William Plumer, Jr.,
Life of William Plumer
(Boston, 1857), 427–28; Skeen,
1816
, chap. 2.

75.
Henry Adams,
History of the United States
(New York, 1889–91), vol. 9, chap. 6.

76.
Skeen,
1816
, chap. 5. Skeen focuses on how controversial the compensation issue was, both during debate and after passage.

77.
National Intelligencer
, April 3, 1816. Through allies, Crawford declared himself a noncandidate, but this did not stop others, including Federalists, from trying to push him past Monroe. See Skeen,
1816
, 212–17.

78.
Virginia Argus
, May 18, 1816; Ketcham, 606.

79.
Massachusetts Spy
, May 29, 1816;
Alexandria Gazette
, October 28, 1816. The “fawning parasite” charge was originally associated with Monroe’s negotiations in England and was leveled at him by a Pennsylvania Republican editor, John Binns of the
Democratic Press
, who was now the “fawning parasite” to Monroe.

80.
Nantucket Gazette
, October 15, 1816.

81.
Jeffrey L. Pasley, “
The Tyranny of Printers”: Newspaper Politics in the Early American Republic
(Charlottesville, Va., 2001), 273–75, 280–81.

82.
Selleck Osborn,
An Oration in Celebration of American Independence
(Windsor, Vt., 1816); also
Vermont Republican
, October 14, 1816; Pasley, “
Tyranny of Printers,
” 281.

83.
Ketcham, 606–8;
JMB
, 2:1325.

84.
Skeen,
1816
, 230.

85.
Indicative of the constitutional complexity he saw, and his willingness to accept conflict, Madison vetoed seven bills during his two terms, the most of any president until the highly confrontational Andrew Jackson. Neither John Adams nor Jefferson used his veto power. See Samuel B. Hoff, “The Legislative Messages of the Madison Administration,” in John R. Vile, Wiliam D. Pederson, and Frank J. Williams, eds.,
James Madison: Philosopher, Founder, and Statesman
(Athens, Ohio, 2008), 256–58.

86.
Leonard D. White,
The Jeffersonians: A Study in Administrative History
(New York, 1951), chap. 31; Skeen,
1816
, chap. 6; TJ to Clinton, April 14, 1817,
TJP-LC;
John Lauritz Larson,
Internal Improvement: National Public Works and the Promise of Popular Government in the United States
(Chapel Hill, N.C., 2001), 66–69, quote at 69.

87.
RL
, 3:1774; Malone, 1:406–7, 2:138; John E. Ferling,
The First of Men: A Life of George Washington
(Knoxville, Tenn., 1988), 321; “Washington’s Resignation Speech (Final Draft),” December 23, 1783, Maryland State Archives, Annapolis (online at
http://www.msa.md.gov
).

1.
TJ to Adams, May 27, 1813,
The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams
, ed. Lester J. Cappon (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1959), 323.

2.
JM to TJ, February 15, 1817,
RL
, 3:1783.

3.
Ralph L. Ketcham, ed., “An Unpublished Sketch of James Madison by James K. Paulding,”
Virginia Magazine of History and Biography
67 (1959): 435–37; Matthew Mason,
Slavery and Politics in the Early American Republic
(Chapel Hill, N.C., 2006), 82–83. Paulding wrote a sympathetic portrait of the South in 1817, reconciling himself to slavery, and he would write a second book in defense of slavery in the year that Madison died. Paulding would eventually serve as secretary of the navy during the presidency of another Dutch-derived New Yorker, Martin Van Buren. Madison’s good-natured style and comfort with Paulding comes through in a chummy note written on behalf of Dolley and himself just after Paulding had gone back to the capital: “We were glad to find that you were not melted on your way to Washington, by the heat, as … we wished you to prolong your asylum [i.e., respite] with us.” JM to Paulding, July 23, 1818,
JMP-LC.

4.
Marie Frank, “It Took an Academical Village: Jefferson’s Hotels at the University of Virginia,”
Magazine of Albemarle History
59 (2001): 31–68.

5.
TJ to Monroe, April 15, 1817,
TJP-LC;
TJ to Adams, May 5, 1817,
Adams-Jefferson Letters
, 513; Andrew Burstein,
Jefferson’s Secrets: Death and Desire at Monticello
(New York, 2005), 59–61; Malone, 6:251–57.

6.
TJ to Ritchie, December 7, 1818; to Joseph Gales, December 7, 1818,
TJP-LC;
Charles Henry Ambler,
Thomas Ritchie: A Study in Virginia Politics
(Richmond, Va., 1913), 63; Malone, 6:272;
JMB
, 2:1349.

7.
JM to Charles Jared Ingersoll, January 4, 1818,
PJM-RS
, 1:198. Ingersoll was a congressman from Pennsylvania during the War of 1812.

8.
Lee to JM, August 5, 1824; JM to Lee, August [?] 1824,
JMP-LC;
Burstein,
Jefferson’s Secrets
, chap. 8. With Barlow, as soon as Jefferson learned that Marshall was embarking on his history, he spoke for Madison as well when he invoked the first-person plural: “We are rich ourselves in materials, and can open all the public archives to you.” Somehow fifteen or twenty years later, no suitable Republican had yet been found to exploit these well-preserved resources.

9.
Plumer to JM, July 28, 1818,
JMP-LC.

10.
JM to Richard Cutts, January 16, February 24, and March 14, 1818; Gideon to JM, January 19, February
12, and August 15, 1818; JM to Gideon, January 28, February 20, and August 20, 1818,
PJM-RS
, 1:200, 212–13, 217, 223–26, 237–38, and
JMP-LC; The Federalist
, ed. Jacob E. Cooke (Middletown, Conn., 1961), xiii–xxi.

11.
Malone, 6:275–78; Burstein,
Jefferson’s Secrets
, 31;
JMB
, 2:1346.

12.
Harry Ammon,
James Monroe: The Quest for National Identity
(Charlottesville, Va., 1971), chaps. 20 and 22. There is uncertainty as to when precisely the President’s House was popularly called the White House, but it probably postdates the period covered in this book.

13.
Burstein,
Passions of Andrew Jackson
(New York, 2003), 125; Jackson to Monroe, March 4, 1817,
Papers of Andrew Jackson
, ed. Sam B. Smith et al. (Knoxville, Tenn., 1980–), 4:93. Jefferson ceremonially toasted Jackson at an affair in Lynchburg, near Poplar Forest, but seems merely to have been cognizant of Jackson’s following and unimpressed with his skills beyond the battlefield.

14.
Monroe to JM, July 10 and July 20, 1818,
PJM-RS
, 1:301–2, 308; JM to TJ, February 12 and March 6, 1819; TJ to JM, March 3, 1819,
RL
, 3:1806–8; James E. Lewis, Jr.,
The American Union and the Problem of Neighborhood, 1783–1829
(Chapel Hill, N.C., 1998), chap. 4; Burstein,
Passions of Andrew Jackson
, 129–37; Ammon,
James Monroe
, chaps. 23 and 24. Ammon takes the position that Monroe never gave Jackson the green light but was opposed to the Florida strategy that the Tennessean pursued because of the risk that it would destabilize U.S. foreign relations with the European powers—especially England. Ironically, it was Crawford, during Jackson’s first term as president, who helpfully called Jackson’s attention to Calhoun’s hypocrisy.