The Last of the Fathers: James Madison and the Republican Legacy. By Drew R. McCoy. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, c. 1989. Pp. [xvii], 386. ISBN 0-521-36407-8.)
Drew McCoy’s The Last of the Fathers studies James Madison’s life from his retirement from public office in March 1817 until his death on June 28, 1836. McCoy, who admits his admiration for Madison, writes more than a biography of Madison’s retirement years. McCoy explains how the elderly Madison defined republican values and passed those ideas to subsequent generations.
McCoy identifies a consensus among earlier scholars that Madison’s career peaked in the late 1780s and early 1790s with his advocacy for the Constitution and the federal system of government. Madison’s presidency, McCoy writes, is usually presented as inept and an embarrassment. Previous biographers tried to understand why Madison blundered through a costly war with Great Britain. McCoy finds this approach incompatible with Madison’s postwar popularity. Madison left office triumphant because his fellow citizens admired his restraint, McCoy argues. Madison led the republic through the crucible of war without infringing on freedoms and he did not use the war to increase the power of the presidency or the size of the federal government. Acquaintances and historians alike misunderstand Madison’s modesty, reserve, and detachment as cold and unsocial.
McCoy describes a serious tension that surfaced often during Madison’s retirement between his commitment to popular government and his overarching concern for preserving order. Madison, McCoy reveals, was far more conservative than his close friend Thomas Jefferson. Madison loathed the “general welfare” clause and feared as subsequent generations used it to justify the expansion of government beyond what the Founders intended. Madison feared unrestrained popular majorities and worried that passions controlled Congress in the early 1820s. Ironically, the nullification crisis, demonstrated Madison’s commitment to majority rule. Madison publicly defended the constitutionality of the protective tariff and hoped the anti-tariff controversy, created by some of his fellow Virginians, would quickly pass. Critics assailed the former president’s opinion as inconsistent with his record. Madison replied that minority interests, in this case those of the nullifiers, should not be allowed to hold the majority’s will hostage.
Slavery, Madison believed, impeded America’s moral authority and the issue cast an ominous cloud over the Father of the Constitution’s final years. Madison understood that slavery limited democracy. As a delegate to the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1829, Madison, a slaveholder, reaffirmed his commitment to the “three-fifths clause” of the federal Constitution. Madison supported the clause because it recognized the humanity of slaves and their present degraded status. The Virginia convention’s commitment to slavery and the continued subjugation of blacks because of race “pushed Madison steadily toward the brink of self-delusion, if not despair,” McCoy writes. “The dilemma of slavery undid him” (p. 252). Madison advocated colonization not because he believed blacks were innately inferior, but because he worried that racism among whites would prevent peace. McCoy finds Madison’s faith in the humanity of slaves ahead of his time. Madison’s commitment to colonization, which seemed foolish to his antislavery contemporaries, seemed logical to the former president. Madison’s principles led him to refuse to sell his slaves even as his financial condition deteriorated and threatened his family’s welfare.
Americans viewed the aging Madison as a connection to the revolutionary generation. Those who sought his wisdom (and did not always like the answers they received) included young disciples Edward Coles, Nicholas P. Trist, and William Cabell Rives. Coles, who served as Madison’s private secretary, developed hostility toward slavery and freed his slaves before becoming the governor of Illinois. Rives served as a Congressman from Virginia and as Andrew Jackson’s minister to France and later wrote a biography of Madison. Trist, a perpetual office seeker, promoted his association with Madison.
Texas Christian University Jeff Wells
Drew R. McCoy. The Last of the Fathers: James Madison and the Republican Legacy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Drew McCoy, professor of American history at Clark University, in 1989 produced a partial intellectual biography on the acknowledged “Father of the Constitution” James Madison. The author concentrates his narrative on the years after Madison’s retirement from the presidency in 1817. McCoy maintains that while Madison occupied the position of elder statesman he increasingly found himself out of step with the passion and partisanship of the 1820s and the 1830s. The former president, the product of the eighteenth-century rationalist Enlightenment, found the development of nineteenth-century romantic nationalism a disturbing and vexing issue. McCoy spends the majority of his narrative exploring how Madison, during his years of retirement, attempted to reconcile these two competing worldviews.
The author maintains that Madison’s views on republicanism and constitutionalism were rooted in order. The former president, shaped by the chaotic Confederation period of the 1780s, believed that the United States Constitution and its checks and balances and the Union it created provided this order. Madison echoed the views expressed by such thinkers like David Hume and Edmund Burke who both maintained that order had to exist before one could effectively exercise individual rights. This view placed Madison at odds with his mentor and friend Thomas Jefferson who placed individual rights above order. The controversial issues of slavery and nullification that plagued the United States during the 1820s and 1830s challenged Madison’s concepts of constitutional order. McCoy examines how Madison’s ideas on constitutional theory attempted to ameliorate those contentious issues.
The Missouri Compromise presented Madison and his Virginia neighbors with some difficulty. Many maintained that Congress lacked the authority to regulate the extension of slavery into the federal territories. The text of the Constitution allowed congressional oversight only of slaves imported into the country by way of Africa. The Missouri Compromise which regulated the introduction of slavery into the northern portions of the Louisiana Territory struck some as a blatant congressional usurpation of power. However, Madison took a more flexible approach when considering the Compromise. He conceded that the Constitution could be construed in more than one fashion. In addition, Madison saw the Compromise as a solution to preserve the Union. The elderly founder was willing to depart from the expressed text of the Constitution to preserve national order and unity.
Nullification also presented a threat to Madison’s prized Union. The “Father of the Constitution” rejected the theory of nullification presented by John C. Calhoun and his supporters. Madison, by historical precedent and experience, maintained that the Constitution allowed federal imposition and implementation of the tariffs. A tariff had been passed by the first Congress at the time of the founding of the republic. Additionally, Madison alleged that when the individual states ratified the Constitution they had delegated certain rights and responsibilities to the new national government. The elder statesman found no constitutional basis for Calhoun’s argument. Nevertheless, the South Carolinian invoked Madison’s Virginia Resolutions to bolster his nullification argument. Madison found that Calhoun misread those documents produced in 1798. The former president maintained that nullification could only possibly take place when a federal act was blatantly unconstitutional. The Virginia Resolutions, written by Madison in response to the Alien and Sedition Acts, represented a response to a law that attacked the fundamental right of free speech. Madison had already concluded that economic legislation was constitutional. He rejected Calhoun’s positions and saw them as a direct threat to the Union. Again order and unity trumped any concerns over economic rights.
In all, McCoy produces a highly literate work on Madison’s later years. His prose is clear and concise. The author utilized Madison’s voluminous papers to construct a comprehensive narrative of the founder’s retirement.
However, some flaws exist in the author’s work. McCoy admits that he possesses a highly favorable view of Madison and this clouds his analysis of the founding father’s tenure as president. He finds that Madison exercised great restraint during his presidency in not undermining civil liberties during the course of the War of 1812. However, Madison’s restraint could be interpreted as dangerous passivity. The president allowed the Warhawks in Congress to push the United States into a conflict in which it remained woefully unprepared to conduct. In addition, Madison failed to exercise a myriad of powers at his disposal as commander-in-chief and presided over a disastrous war which resulted in the burning of the national capitol by the British. Only Andrew Jackson’s victories in the Southeast saved Madison’s floundering presidency. Nonetheless, McCoy’s work offers great insight into Madison’s theories on constitutionalism and republicanism.
Robert H. Butts
The Last of the Fathers: James Madison and the Republican Legacy. By Drew R. McCoy. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
In The Last of the Fathers: James Madison and the Republican Legacy, author Drew R. McCoy examines the life and issues relevant to James Madison during his retirement from public office. Although the emphasis of the work purports to focus on this period of the statesman’s life, McCoy’s study traces Madison’s views on the issues from his emergence as a national leader to his death. In addition, the author attempts to remove Madison from the shadow of his more flamboyant colleague, Thomas Jefferson. Refuting conventional portrayals of Madison as a stoic intellectual devoid of interpersonal skills and lacking charisma, McCoy weaves first-hand accounts by contemporary personalities to illuminate Madison’s personality. The reader finds a resulting characterization of Madison as a amiable intellectual genuinely pleased to discuss current events and political issues with visitors, often imploring new acquaintances to spend long hours in his home. Madison subscribed to numerous newspapers and maintained a vigorous correspondence with friends. By contrast, McCoy portrays Jefferson as too distant and intellectually engaged in his own pursuits to involve himself fully in current affairs during his retirement. Jefferson’s literary appetites focused on books, largely to the exclusion of newspapers, and he often neglected his correspondence.
Following his retirement from the Presidency in 1817, Madison retired to his Virginian estate, intent on organizing his personal papers and notes for posterity. An avid reader of both books and newspapers, Madison remained deeply concerned about several issues of national importance. The unity of the nation, nullification, the constitutionality of the tariff system, colonization, slavery, and the ever present danger that the momentary passions of the people would overwhelm the stability of the republic deeply concerned the elder statesman. Though seldom engaging in public discourse after his retirement, these issues occasionally warranted a rare public comment by Madison, often proving detrimental to his public persona. His notes and letters reflect his growing anxiety concerning the state of the union, as well as his paradoxical views on slavery.
The author’s exploration of Madison’s views, particularly on the issue of slavery, is penetrating. McCoy’s analysis enables the reader to understand the paradoxical nature of Madison’s dilemma on slavery. The statesman’s abhorrence of the institution of slavery remained consistent throughout his life. Yet, like Jefferson and Washington, Madison continued to own slaves. Madison’s slaves appeared to be relatively well treated and respected their owner. Madison’s repugnance of the sale of slaves is noted by the author, as is the sale of several slaves to a relative during economically challenging times. McCoy’s analysis attributes Madison’s support of colonization to the elder statesman’s dilemma. Intellectually, Madison must have recognized the impractical nature of colonization. Certainly his own slaves’ rejection of relocation to a distant colony should have given Madison pause in his support of colonization. However, the threat the issue of slavery posed to the nation and his belief that free blacks and whites could not coexist peacefully enabled him to delude himself into supporting colonization.
McCoy’s text is skillfully written and insightful, despite the overwhelming admiration the author displays for his subject. Despite his fondness for Madison, the author has provided an objective account of Madison’s later years. However, his repetitiveness and his excessively detailed narratives of the lives of Madison’s protégés is often distracting. The text could easily be condensed to half its present size. McCoy’s footnotes reveal an impressive reliance on primary and secondary material, with a heavy emphasis on Madison’s correspondence.
Melanie Kirkland
The Last of the Fathers: James Madison and the Republican Legacy. By Drew R. McCoy. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Pp. xx, 386.)
In this biographical work of James Madison, Drew McCoy examines the life of Madison in the last nineteen years of his life from the time he retired from the office as President in March 1817 to his death, June 28, 1836. He was already a national symbol at this time and his thoughts and ideas on national issues were important to many who came in contact with him. McCoy is obviously a Madison fan, but his treatment of the man is evenhanded.
Davis Hume, a Scottish thinker, heavily influenced Madison. He believed by extending the sphere of republican government from a state to a national level political faction, injustice, and instability could be prevented. Naturally, power would be given to those who were wise statesmen who would then, in turn, become the “proper guardians of the public wealth.” (p.43) He found fault in state constitutions because of their abundance and inconsistent laws. He felt that federal republicanism could resolve these problems.
During his retirement, Madison kept himself abreast of contemporary political developments. His intellect was still strong and he read current newspapers and had his house servants keep him informed of all new political advancements. Madison embodied the values of the American Enlightenment through his politics and character and continued to influence the fate of the Republic he had helped create. He wanted to project his eighteenth century visions concerning politics and society onto “an explosive, rapidly fragmenting America.”(xiv) He lived within the contrast of eighteenth century virtue and nineteenth century passion Madison firmly believed in a self-governed nation, but tended to have hierarchical tendencies. His greatest fear of this growing republic was public passion. He believed the people should elect representatives, but once they were elected, the people should be called on to makes decisions or amendments only under extraordinary circumstances. In this area, he blatantly disagreed with Thomas Jefferson, who advocated popular conventions and amendments to fix any current problems with the political system, and this is only one of many political discrepancies between the two men that McCoy points out. Madison held the idea that only historical investigation and precedent could determine modern constitutional interpretation. He was afraid “congressionally mandated constitutionality would supplant the authority of historically derived fundamental law.”(p.103)
McCoy uses much personal correspondence, along with accounts of foreigners who visited Madison in his last years, but he also interestingly ties Madison ideologies into the lives of three men who, through their own action, carry on the legacy of Madison. Edward Coles, Nicholas Trist, and William Cabell Rives were three young men who were strongly influenced by Madison and in very different ways, each embraced an aspect of Madison. One common trait that they all inherited from Madison was their dedication to the preservation of the Union.
McCoy scrutinizes the issue of slavery. Madison did not agree with the moral nature of slavery. He felt it was not a proper institution for the new Republican government, but he wanted to strike a balance between both sides of slavery. At the Virginia Constitutional Convention in 1829, the spread of slavery into the territories and future states was a primary issue. Madison believed moderation was a virtue, but in this case his moderation and compromising ability led him nowhere. His final solution to the slavery issue was colonization and he eventually became president of the Colonization Society. He believed that an innate racial hatred existed between blacks and whites and because of this, there was no chance of them living together peacefully. He tried to solve a social problem in terms of geographical space by creating an African colony for the exportation of freed slaves. This was a disguised form of imperialist rule by the “great white man” and the problems and realities that would be faced, such as transportation of that large a number of people were never addressed. He also felt this would postpone the inevitable problem of overpopulation and the social consequences it would bring. Though his rhetoric supported the anti-slavery side of the issue, upon his death he left his slaves to his wife Dolley who proceeded to sell them off to other masters who might not be as sympathetic as Madison had been.
The idea of overpopulation bothered Madison, not only within the slave population, but for the free whites as well. He felt that if society grew so large that it was not feasible for the free white man to own and cultivate his own land that they would settle for jobs in the area of commerce and trade. He believed that man would only have a vested interest in the political well being of the country if they were landowners and this led him to reconsider voting qualifications. He was not a Federalist by any means, but these issues brought out the conservative side of him.
McCoy uses Andrew Jackson as a symbol in which to contrast the new era of Republicanism. A foreign journalist who had previously spent time with Madison was present during the assassination attempt on Jackson’s life. Jackson’s reaction personifies the changing nation. He immediately accused all political rivals of the attempt, even after the man is proved to be insane. The journalist finds it absurd that Jackson would promote the idea that one of his own constituents would want him dead. This is a wonderful contrast of the new age that Madison watched being ushered in.
This book is filled with complexities of Madison throughout his lifetime and McCoy’s writing style is one to be admired. The only drawback to this reading is the repetitiveness in expressing Madison’s through example. He spends the first five chapters analyzing Madison’s political philosophy when he could have had the same affect and made his point in about half the space. For Madison scholars, this is a definitive volume as it examines a period of his life that has been previously neglected.
Sharon Romero