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SHORT, FAT AND THIN: PRESIDENTS ARE HUMAN, TOO! (PART I) - Page 4

© William

When Jefferson entered the White House in 1801, Madison became his secretary of state. Dolley served as official White House hostess for the widowed chief executive. Although the conduct of foreign affairs during his eight years in the State Department was of lasting significance, little credit goes to Madison, for Jefferson chose to serve as his own secretary of state. But if Madison’s achievements in the Jefferson administration were not significant, the fact remains that the administration avoided outright war with Britain and France.

To no one’s surprise, a congressional caucus nominated Madison to succeed Jefferson as president in 1808. Madison easily defeated his Federalist opponent, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, by an electoral vote of 122 to 47.

In March of 1809, James Madison took the oath of office as the fourth president of the United States. His wife, Dolley, was the first First Lady to attend an inaugural ball.

As president, Madison was less impressive. His administration was marked by a series of disasters: the outbreak of an unnecessary war with Great Britain in 1812; humiliating early defeats for American forces; loud opposition to the war by the public; the invasion of the nation’s capital by British forces and the burning of the White House, the Capitol and other public buildings; the refusal of the New England states to support the war effort and serious talk of secession on their part. By the third year of the war, Madison appeared physically shattered and his energy depleted. Fortunately, a series of unexpected victories in the closing months of the war, especially Andrew Jackson’s triumph over the British at New Orleans after the peace treaty was signed, lifted American spirits and reunited the country. Economic prosperity, following the war, permitted Madison to leave the White House in 1817 in an atmosphere of friendliness and good will.

The Madisons returned home to their beloved Montpelier, where the former president assumed the role of gentleman farmer and Dolley continued playing the premier hostess at the couple’s lavish dinner parties. Madison still kept an eye on the pulse of the nation by serving as an advisor to his successor James Monroe’s administration. Upon the death of Thomas Jefferson in 1826, Madison replaced his beloved friend as rector of the University of Virginia.

As a delegate to the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1829, he protested the disproportionate power of the eastern slaveholders in the state legislature. He continued to work for the abolishment of slavery; he wrote his autobiography, and he edited the journal of the Federal Convention.

President James Madison (1809-1817)

President William Howard Taft (1909-1913)

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