Part 8 (1/2)

[Illustration: D P Madison]

With the ensuing session of Congress, at the close of Washi+ngton's adressional service ended The leadershi+p of the opposition, whatever ht of its influence upon the welfare of the country, or of the personal overned, had devolved upon hi, by natural selection of the fittest for that position It was not an easy place to take, either by one's own choice or by the suffrages of others; for at the head of the adrateful country, surrounded bythose, at least, ere best known for their past services and most esteemed for their ability and character It was the more difficult for one whose personal relation to the President was that of the warmest friendshi+p; to whom the President was accusto a those eminent men to whom the people owed their new Constitution, was counted upon to strengthen the union of the States and build up a strong and stable governnity; if not brilliant, he was always ready with the best reasons that could be given for the measures he supported; and his zeal was invariably tempered with a wise moderation and a courtesy toward opponents which made him always respected, and sometimes feared for reserved force, in debate

Soress Mr

Madison had married, and it is quite possible that this may in part have moved him to seek rest in the tranquillity of a country life Tradition says that Mrs Madison was a beautiful woure in the society of Washi+ngton, and many remember her for her fine presence, her powers of conversation, and that beauty which soh it may not have been preceded by youthful comeliness Her maiden name was Dolly Payne, and her parents were members of the Society of Friends When Madison married her she was Mrs Todd, theof John Todd, a lawyer of Philadelphia Her age at this ti forty-three, and she survived hi in 1849 On her tombstone she is called ”Dolley;” but Mr Rives, in his life of her husband, ever mindful of the proprieties, calls her ”Dorothea,” or rather, Mrs

Dorothea Payne Madison; for, like the Vicar of Wakefield, he loved to give the whole name

CHAPTER XV

AT HOME--”RESOLUTIONS OF '98 AND '99”

Mr Madison, in retiring for a time from public office, did not lose his interest in public affairs Of few Aenius for politics, and the subject, wherever he ht be, was never out of his mind There is not much else in the voluh else to show that in these he said all he had to say about anything His s, the papers in ”The Federalist,” the essay on The British Doctrine of Neutral Trade, his controversial articles in the newspapers under various pseudonyreat value as a part of the history of the times Those which are controversial, however, e rather than as definite conclusions to be accepted without question It does not detract from the value of these letters, however, that they are written from the point of view of a party leader Affairs of only temporary importance sometimes loom up before him merely because of their influence upon so consequences, which have no such bearing, escape his notice altogether; but the reader soon learns that he may, at any rate, confide in the sincerity of the writer, and accept as freely the reasons given for his course as they are frankly stated

Of the literary value of his writings, aside from their historical interest, there is not h Mr Madison alrote, even in his letters, as if writing for posterity He was not felicitous in the use of language; the style is turgid, heavy with resounding words of ination, any flash of wit or of huether But there is a genuineness, an evident sincerity of purpose, in all he wrote, and occasionally an expression of deep feeling, which are always ilimpses of his private life and character in such letters, for they are not easily apparent In one sense he had no private life, or, at least, none that was not so subordinate to his public career that there was little in it either significant or attractive There is, in this respect, a marked contrast between his correspondence and that of Jefferson There was, possibly, a little affectation in Jefferson's frequent assertions of his intense desire for the quiet of the country and the tranquillity of home, and of his distaste for the turmoils and anxieties of public office But he was certainly fond of country life, with the leisure to potter about arowth of his wheat and his clover; to contrive new coulters for his plows; to talk of philosophy, of the Social Contract, of mechanics, and of natural history: if he was averse to public life, it was not because political power and distinction were a burden to hiht with them strife and unpopularity, which truly his soul loathed for hih he rather liked to set other people by the ears His private life was unquestionably as full of interest to hi to look upon in the unconscious revelation of his own letters

But with Madison it was apparently quite otherwise He unbent with difficulty Always solenified, it was rather painful than pleasant to him to stoop to the petty matters of every-day existence He had no s that he ithout ambition; as if that, without which nobody is of much use in the world either to himself or to others, were a weakness akin to depravity

With brief intervals, covering only a few ether, he here he best liked to be, from his entrance upon public life in 1775 till he stepped down in 1817 fro steps During these forty-two years he found a certain enjoyment in a country home for a little while at a time, but it was chiefly the enjoyment of needed rest from official labor The price of tobacco and the promise of the wheat crop interested him then, but only as they interested him always as a source of his own incoeneral prosperity At the end of a letter upon political matters, he announces with satisfaction that hisare as well as could be expected; but it was probably Mr Jefferson's gratification rather than his own that he had in ain, in a si space to express a hope that Mr Jefferson may permit the use of the rams of that flock to improve the breed of the native stock; not, apparently, that he cared so much about wool as that he wished to show a courteous and friendly interest in one of Mr Jefferson's enerally

It was probably during the year of coress that Mr Madison built his house at Montpellier, though some question has been raised on this point He certainly was building a house at that time, and it is not likely that he ever e discussions of Alien and Sedition Laws, the war in Europe, free goods in neutral shi+ps, and other public topics, are brief allusions to lathing nails which he depended upon Mr Jefferson to supply; that gentle recently set up a ood many other of his contrivances, seems to have had a hitch in it So also he asks the Vice-President to see to it that, when the -glass and the pulleys are forwarded, the ”chord” for the latter shall not be forgotten; and orders for other articles, only to be found in Philadelphia, are sent to his obliging friend Mr Jefferson, it is easy to believe, found the part of the political letters to which they were appended; and he was quite willing, no doubt, to relieve the tediuh the Market Street shops for the latest improvements in builders' hardware To Mr Monroe, Madison wrote that, as he is sending off a wagon to fetch nails for his carpenters, ”it will receive the few articles which you have been so good as to offer from the superfluities of your stock, and which circuetting ready to go to housekeeping with his young wife Monroe's stock of household goods had been replenished, perhaps by importations fro of his old supplies, by gift or sale, ahbors Madison, at any rate, sends this modest list of what he would like to have: ”To wit, two table-cloths for a dining-roohteen feet; two, three, or four, as may be convenient, for a more limited scale; four dozen napkins, which will not in the least be objectionable for having been used; and two ant outfit, even though it had not been inia ho pictures ”We are so little acquainted,”--Mr

Madison continues in that stately hich nothing ever surprised hi,--”we are so little acquainted with the culinary utensils in detail that it is difficult to refer to such by name or description as would be within our wants”

But pots and kettles,--though that inia,--table-cloths and mattresses, however moderate in number, are sure indications that the house, which was to be his residence when he should be content to retire from public service, was finished early in 1798 He had rested long enough, and was busy that year in attendance upon the state assembly at Richmond, to which he consented the next year to be returned as a er out of the fray Perhaps he felt called to a special duty Affairs, foreign and domestic, were in a critical condition France, in her resentes upon American coes; and, by refusing to receive the ministers froovernements,--disclosed in the X Y Z correspondence,--that all friendly relations between the two countries had ceased, and it had seemed impossible that war could be avoided

For a while the popular sympathy was entirely with Mr Adams's administration, and the promise could hardly be fairer that the Federalists, if they ht remain in power and be sustained by the whole country But in some respects they were as unwise as in others they were unfortunate President Adareat qualities, was of too irascible and jealous a teood ruler But there were otherthe Federalists ere hardly less fond of having their oay than the President was of having his The incoether on one side in that family quarrel But all were equally responsible for such a blunder as the enactment of the Alien and Sedition Laws The provocation, it is true, was unquestionably great Refugees from abroad had crowded to the United States, itators, and soht have had for foland or in France, there was nothing to justify any such violent measures in this country But from their conduct as political partisans, particularly as newspaper editors, they soon came to be looked upon by the Federalists--for they all joined the other party--as a dangerous class There grew up a feeling that it would be wiser for civil affairs to remain, in city, state, and nation, in the hands of those ere born and educated under republican institutions, and not to fall altogether under control of those ere alien in blood and religion, and ere inclined to look upon politics, not in the light of the citizen's duty to the co where the least scrupulous scoundrel could gather the largest share of spoils It may be that the authors of those laere so determined to forestall the apprehended evils of such a dispensation because use had not accustoenerations of American citizens, to live under it in humility if not content Or, perhaps, they wanted that profound faith of our tiovernet back to the rule of the honest and wise

But, at any rate, whatever their reasons, theyto aliens to put the acquireulations, and to check the growth and proation of seditious doctrines If it be true, as is sometimes maintained with soovernence and virtue, then the aiood one; and, in the second case, the country has had some experience in later ti in believing that doctrines and practices which ht best be met, so far as is possible, at the outset

Nevertheless, the laws, under the circumstances of the time, were ill-considered and injudicious For one reason, they put an efficient weapon into the hands of the opposition at a licisold” were blunderbusses which, in the present popular irritation against France, had for a time lost their usefulness, and were apt to enerous and iees, who had fled from the tyranny of the Old World to find liberty and a hoood many, besides those who assuhts of , believed that an unfortunate class had been dealt with hastily, and even cruelly The claainst the Federalists They could be denounced now, not only as the ene it to men of any nation or any race who should seek it in the United States,--it being, of course, understood that races of black or yellow couave the President power to order out of the country all aliens whose presence he thought dangerous,--that it ht be used to prevent the importation of persons from Africa On this point Mr Gallatin, a native of Switzerland, was exceedingly anxious lest there be a violation of the Constitution But the outrage upon the rights of ht of white ainst the enact as Vice-President But whatever was his motive for official inaction, it was not because he approved theest protest that could be ainst them, and to be thenceforth held by nullifiers and secessionists as their covenant of faith But he acted secretly, taking counsel only with George Nicholas of Kentucky and Williainia (brothers), and, Hildreth says, ”probably with Madison” The resolutions were to be offered in the Kentucky legislature by George Nicholas, and, with some modifications, were passed by that body in November A year afterward other resolutions were passed to reassert the opinions of the previous session, and to record against the laws the ”sole ”that a nullification by those sovereignties [the States] of all unauthorized acts done under color of that instruhtful remedy” In the resolutions which Mr Jefferson had prepared for Nicholas the year before, this essential doctrine is found in that portion which Nicholas had omitted, in these words,--”where powers are assuated, a nullification of the act is the rightful reinally prepared, the resolutions were found in Jefferson's handwriting after his death Hildreth's conjecture that Madison, as well as the brothers Nicholas, was consulted in the preparation of these resolutions, rests only on circumstantial evidence The Kentucky resolutions were passed in Noveinia in December; the former ritten by Jefferson, the latter by Madison; and the doctrines in each are essentially the sa for the two friends to consult together upon a measure of so much importance; there is no reason why they should not have done so; and these coincidences suggest that they probably did

Jefferson clearly shi+rked the responsibility of an act which he kneould endanger the Union; but Madisonto Richh not a member of the asse these resolutions and urging their adoption But Jefferson was not athat which he believed to be wise In Madison it was only the conscience that was ti he proposed to do was right, he was always ready to face the consequences It may be that neither of them foresaw that the real importance of this particular act was rather prospective than immediate; and if so, their conduct is to be measured by its instant purpose If Jefferson meant then and there to dissolve the Union, or even to weaken the constitutional bond that held it together, he was not overcautious in keeping out of sight But if Madison's intention was to strengthen the Union by withstanding what he believed to be a perilous violation of the Constitution, then his courage, though it is to be commended, is not to be wondered at That, he said, was his ard to them was the chief interest and serious labor of the latter years of his life He was elected a member of the assembly for the session of 1799-1800, probably because he and his friends thought his official presence desirable when the subject should again co of the replies from other States, to all which the resolutions had been sent

The report on those replies was also written by him, and the position taken the year before was therein reaffirth

In 1827-28 the doctrines of nullification and of secession were assuinia resolutions of 1798 and 1799 Jefferson was dead; but Madison felt called upon to deny, in his own defense and the defense of the memory of his friend, that there was any similarity between them From 1830 to 1836 his mind seems to have been chiefly occupied with this subject, upon which he wrote es, entitled ”On Nullification,” which bears the date of 1835-36, the latter year being the last of his life He resents the charge of any political inconsistency in the course of his long career, and n his attachment to the Constitution and the Union The resolutions of 1798, he ht in any one State to arrest or annul an act of the general govern to them collectively Nullification and Secession he denounces as ”twin heresies,” that ”ought to be buried in the sarave” ”A political system,” he declares, ”which does not contain an effective provision for a peaceable decision of all controversies arising within itself would be a government in name only” He asserts that ”the essential difference between a free governovernments not free is that the former is founded in compact, the parties to which are mutually and equally bound by it Neither of theht to break off froain than the other or others have to hold theh time that the claim to secede at will should be put down by the public opinion” What,--he writes to another friend,--”what can be more preposterous than to say that the States, as united, are in no respect or degree a nation, which inty,and on the other hand, and at the same time, to say that the States separately are cons? The words of the Constitution are explicit, that the Constitution and laws of the United States shall be supreme over the Constitution and laws of the several States; supreme in their exposition and execution, as well as in their authority Without a supremacy in these respects, it would be like a scabbard, in the hand of a soldier, without a sword in it” Abrahaht years later when he determined that his first duty as President was to suppress insurrection

Such is the drift of thethe last five or six years of his life He looked then, whatever hecentury, upon the United States as a nation, and not as a confederacy having its parts held together only by ”a treaty or league” called a constitution But his object is to show that there is nothing inconsistent in the resolutions of 1798 with these opinions upon the sovereignty of the United States; that he held thely then as he held them now; and that they, and he as their author, looked to the States as a whole, not to a single State, to find and apply a remedy, in a constitutional way, for an unconstitutional ht be guilty His position is ical skill which n of failure of mental power, of which those accused him who could not answer hination as he did a charge of inconsistency, which here could only mean falsehood There is no possibility, then, ofthe last six years of his life; and the world has no right to doubt his repeated and earnest assurances that these were his opinions when he wrote the resolutions of 1798 It can only be said that the construction he gave them thirty years afterward is opposed to the universal understanding of them at the time they ritten

But if his defense of himself be considered complete, it is not even specious when presented on behalf of Jefferson Mr Madison wrote in 1830: ”That the ters to those of 1799, hich Mr Jefferson had nothing to do The resolutions of 1798, drawn by him, contain neither that nor any equivalent terenerally knohether Mr Madison knew it or not, that one of the resolutions and part of another which Jefferson wrote to be offered in the Kentucky legislature in 1798 were omitted by Mr Nicholas, and that therein was the assertion already quoted,--”where powers are assuated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy” The next year, when additional resolutions were offered by Mr Breckenridge, this idea, in sie, was presented in the words, ”that a nullification by those sovereignties [the States] of all unauthorized acts, done under color of that instruhtful rerandson and executor, was made public; and, further, that another declaration of Mr Jefferson's in the resolution not used was an exhortation to the co-States ”that each will takethat neither these acts nor any others of the general government, not plainly and intentionally authorized by the Constitution, shall be exercised within their respective territories” All this must have been known to Mr Madison then, if not before Yet, three years later, in that paper ”On Nullification” which has been ht of nullification is, that a single State may arrest the operation of a law of the United States And this newfangled theory is attempted to be fathered on Mr Jefferson, the apostle of republicanism” It would be charitable here to believe that there was sootten that Jefferson was, above all things, his oords being witness, the apostle of nullification

The Alien and Sedition Laws--of which the more obnoxious of the former was never enforced, and the latter expired by limitation in two years--had their influence in the presidential election of 1800 But it was due more to differences between the President and some of the leaders of the Federal party that that party lost its hold upon power, never to be regained With the election of Jefferson, Madison entered upon another sphere of duty, which was politically a proe, was not so evident as when an active leader of his party It was at Mr Jefferson's ”pressing desire,”

Mr Madison himself says, in a letter written many years afterward, that he took the office of secretary of state In the same letter he explains that he had declined an executive appoint a seat in the House of Representatives, he would be less exposed to the imputation of selfish views in the part he had taken in ”the origin and adoption of the Constitution;” because there, if anywhere, he could be of service in sustaining it against its adversaries, especially as it was, ”in its progress, encountering trials of a new sort in the for adverse constructions to it” The latter reason seehts which public men not unfrequently flatter themselves will anticipate a question they would prefer should not be asked Mr Madison was a ress from the first day it met, before the new Constitution had encountered new trials from new parties by any constructions either one way or the other

CHAPTER XVI

SECRETARY OF STATE