List of Cabinet and Administrative Personell in August 1814
Notable Facts on Madison's Political Environment
We are all familiar with the political climates for Bill Clinton and George W. Bush within the past decade. We all have an idea of what these presidents are like personally. We have little idea, tho, about presidents of years past. But we can pretty much see them as people did then if we examine their political circumstance. To understand the politics of the days of Madison, you need to know the technology of the time, and world history up to that point. That may sound like a lot, but you only need go into detail as you get closer to the times of Madison.
For this instance, you need know very little about ancient Greece because it was so long before Madison and so far from America. Yet you ought to know something about it because Greek Revival architecture was popular in Madison's time. You need know little of the English Civil War because it was over a hundred years before Madison. But it was an important political lesson to the English that was passed on to Americans and may have fortold the success of the American Revolution. When you come to the days when Madison was born and growing up, you must start picking up details such as the Stamp Act. By the time Madison is in office as Secretary of State in the Jefferson Administration, you must know the politics of France and England as well as the United States.
One preface to our political description is a name confusion that must be cleared up; a confusion that has plagued every Political Science student since the Civil War. Before today's Democrats and Republicans, we had two loosely corresponding political parties; the "Democratic Republicans" (usually shortened to "Republicans") and the Federalists. The "Republicans" mostly held the beliefs of today's Democrats. The Federalists were somewhat like the Republicans of today.
America was a new country in Madison's time. This is often mentioned in history books as little more than a romantic notion. Instead, it is vital that the reader appreciate the contribution of this fact; laws had to be tested and official duties defined and assigned as they became needed. Reputations and powers were not known and had yet to be earned.
Governing officials had to almost make up the rules as they went along. All sorts of legal and official processes were contested and argued about not only due to political differences, but on grounds of legal propriety. Interstate trade, currency printing, buying of land, police powers, and EVERYTHING it seemed was something someone was going to raise an arguement about as to exactly how it was done or who had proper authority to do it.
Another, very big consideration for developing America was; Which philosophy would America be built along? That of the "Republicans" or the Federalists? It was felt that once the country began down one or the other road, it would continue that way (or cost great money and lots of effort to get it back the other way). Federalists and Republicans each felt much was at stake. As America turned from a colony into a Nation, its people polarized from Colonials into "Republicans" or Federals; onetime friends and comrades in arms became political enemies.
Briefly, one can exemplify "Republicans" by perhaps their foremost political leader; Thomas Jefferson. He believed in the power of agriculture, of the common man to be responsible and productive and educated, and of the non-need of a strong federal government in that each state could handle nearly every issue its own way. The Federalists, on the other hand, believed that the mass population was ill informed, otherwise preoccupied, and not educationally equipped to handle many political matters, and they believed in a strong central government which established policy for the entire country and left to states only those matters unique to them. Certainly there is truth and sense in both these views. Depending on the type of people governed, either could work. But being in opposition, only one could be followed at a time. The reader can see many of these issues alive today as matters of controversy.
America's first presidents, Federalists Washington and Adams, had done things according to that philosophy. Anything that went wrong was blamed on Federalism. It was decided that "Republicanism" was worth a try so Thomas Jefferson was then elected president. He had his problems and enemies also, but overall the country was satisfied with his methods.
None of Jefferson's administrative actions better exemplified his philosophy than with his "flotilla" concept. Instead of having more large warships built, he felt building many small gunboats would be better for defending the huge amount of coastline the US needed to cover. Jefferson felt that, if necessary, these boats could mass together as need called them, and that each state would certainly get their appropriate share of boats.
In a short aside, the reader can now be aquainted with the famous Supreme Court case of Marbury vs. Madison. Jefferson's predicessor, John Adams (a Federalist), lost re-election. Upon leaving office, his party felt it would be clever to leave orders to appoint a slew of Federalists as judges and other authoritative positions. These commissions were left to Jefferson to to be carried out. These were last minute Federalist appointments to keep the country from going too "Republican". Jefferson's Secretary of State, James Madison, was in charge of delivering these commissions (official papers proving that person had been given their authority). Nobody in the new administration was in any hurry to do so. One of those awaiting his commission was William Marbury. To shorten our story, Marbury sued the government. The Writ of Mandimus (meaning I Order You to Do Yer Freakin Job) was put before the Supreme Court which (Cheif Justice John Marshall was also Secretary of State at one time) decided that a law Congress passed giving the Court the power to force affectation of process (in this case force Madison to fork over the commission) was unconstitutional. This legal precedent has stood since and has been cited often.
Jefferson, not wanting re-election, left office and Madison was elected president; first in 1808 and again in 1812. Madison was Jefferson's personal and political friend. Madison ran against a fellow party member, and Jefferson's Vice President, George Clinton. But Madison's main election opponent was Federalist Charles Pinckney. Pinckney had been an army general in the Revolutionary War and had been offered several important government positions by President George Washington. In Madison's first term, the US Legislature held a strong majority of "Republicans" in both the House (about 2 to 1) and Senate (almost unanimous).
The matters of problems with France and England, left unsettled during previous administrations, kept Madison busy his first term in office. France was a unique problem in that it was undergoing political upheaval of its own. Thus it was difficult to deal with mostly because French officials might change without notice. England was the same England as America had beaten in the Revolution; they considered Americans as ignorant, ungrateful, and lucky. Their own king, George III, was having mental problems. This caused his son to become Regent: a ruler in his stead. This is why furniture and clothing style of this period is called "Regency".
The problems with France and England continued into Madison's second term of 1812. He was elected with a smaller margin than last election, this time against the Federalist candidate DeWitt Clinton (note this is not George Clinton, Madison's Vice President). Madison got a new vice president for the second term; the notorious former Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry, who caused the creation of the term "Gerrymander" when he supported a bill of geographically convoluted redistricting. The US legislature was similarly increased in Federalist presence, though still a majority of "Republicans" in both House and Senate. Public opinion was now not so against the Federalists.
Many people blamed Madison for the lack of solution to the foreign relations problems. Britian continued to treat US shipping as though it had no soverignty. It continued to forcefully take US sailors and goods from US ships. France was no longer doing much of this, having settled on the government under Napoleon. Napoleon concentrated his military agression on the lands of Europe. Indeed, Napoleon's virtual dismissal of America had provided us (during the Jefferson administration) with the huge Louisiana territory; almost a give-away.
Over the years, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison were all unable to stop the problems with maritime interruptions. Federalists mostly did not care enough to take any action that they felt would be a great risk without proportional reward. "Republicans" felt the opposite; that the kidnapping of US sailors was outrageous, second to but aggravated by the theft of US commercial property, and that we should bear any resonable burden to right the moral and practical wrong, including war.
Such was the situation when, in the summer of 1812, Madison declared war on England.
Madison's personal life was dry by today's standards. He was born in Port Conway, Virginia on March 16, 1751. He was a teenager when the infamous "Stamp Act" was issued and quickly repealled. His parents were James and Elenor Conway Madison. He was the eldest of his several brothers and sisters. Most of his siblings died before 1812, his brother William a notible exception. Madison was not a physically large man as was George Washington. He was rather small and spoke with such a quiet voice that he was difficult to hear in meetings such as the Continental Congress.
Madison attended what is now Princeton University in New Jersey and became a professional polititian by first being elected in 1774 to the notible Committee of Safety, a revolutionary organization. Two years later he was elected to Virginia's legislature and became part of the Continental Congress.
Madison married Dorothea Payne Todd, better known as the famous "Dolley" Madison. She was born in North Carolina in 1768.
In 1814, when the British invaded, the Madisons had to flee the President's House (now called the White House but in 1814 there was a nearby Virginia home called "the White House"). Upon return to Washington, they used the Octagon House while the President's House was under repair. Madison's term as President soon ended and thus they never returned to the President's House.
After Madison's political life, he retired to his Virginia estate named Montpelier. He died in 1836, near the time of the Battle of the Alamo. Dolley continued for thirteen more years, and in the last year of her life (1849) she had her photograph (a daguerreotype) done by that new and wonderful process. She was photographed in Washington DC, the city she had to flee so many years ago.
