America's Greatest 19th Century Presidents (13 page)

The USS Constitution is the oldest commissioned ship still in service, though it is all but permanently docked along the Charles River in Cambridge, Massachusetts

Throughout 1813, every attempt to invade Canada were nothing but an embarrassment for the United States.  In the West and South, however, the British had not yet committed large ground forces.  Fighting a more urgent war with Napoleon in Europe, the British were not really concerned about the puny American threat.  Because of their absence, American forces were able to successfully defeat various Indian tribes in the West and South, led by leaders such as General William Henry Harrison and General Andrew Jackson.

Still, the Royal Navy continued to bombard the East Coast of the United States.  In August 1814, the Navy bombarded Washington, D.C., and sent a ground force into the city.  With that, they burned the city of Washington D.C., forcing the federal government to flee its own capital.  President Madison, who had no military experience whatsoever, also fled the White House, which was in flames.  His wife showed more courage, however, when she famously ran into the blazing White House and saved a portrait of George Washington from the fire.  Unfortunately, her type of boldness was not enough to save the entire city: the unfinished U.S. Capitol Building was destroyed, along with the White House and much of the city's infrastructure. The Capitol Building would still be under construction when the Civil War started nearly 50 years later.

1814 was the height of failure for the U.S. in the War of 1812.  With Napoleon's defeat after the Battle of Leipzig and his exile, the British were now able to focus ground forces on North America.  They focused their efforts in the Northeast, particularly in New York.  This met mixed results, however.  The British won some victories but lost others, and were unable to hold significant pieces of American territory.

Dissent and Victory

Sensing the war was clearly not going to fulfill the country’s objectives, President Madison began to negotiate for peace with the British at the urging of the British Prime Minister back in 1813.  But negotiations were slow to materialize, even while pressure on Madison was mounting.

In 1814, after the burning of Washington and the increasing humiliation of the United States, Federalists in New England assembled for the Hartford Convention.  The group threatened to secede from the Union, using language similar to the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions Madison had authored earlier in his life.  Throughout the War of 1812, New England and its Federalist citizens despised the war and wanted an immediate end.

Before the Hartford Convention could rally around secession, however, President Madison and the country breathed a collective sigh of relief when the
Treaty of Ghent
was signed on December 24
^th
, 1814.  The Treaty restored the
status quo ante bellum
, meaning all borders and agreements between the U.S. and Great Britain from before the war were restored.  Both sides offered nothing to the other, except for the cessation of hostilities.

Patriotic fervor rallied around President Madison with the Treaty of Ghent, but communication across all of the country meant that military forces on the Western frontier did not receive news of the peace treaty until February 1815. Before news of the peace reached the West, Andrew Jackson and his garrison achieved the Americans’ greatest victory of the war with the Battle of New Orleans.  With that, the nation gained a bit more of its pride, believing that all was not lost in its most failed war. 

With the end of the war, Madison had less than two years left in the now-charred White House.  Among his accomplishments were the admission of Indiana to the Union and the chartering of the Second Bank of the United States.  So his successors could be better prepared, President Madison also signed a bill that mandated the U.S. maintain a standing army and increase the size of its navy.

Chapter 6: Madison’s Final Years and Legacy

Post-Presidency and Death

Few Presidents were more relieved to leave the Presidency than James Madison.  His time in Washington was dominated by a war that continues to go down in history as one of the country's most disastrous.  After 1816, Madison retired to spend the remainder of his life relaxing at his estate, Montpelier, in Virginia. Predictably, Madison was concerned about his historical legacy, and he took great pains to promote an image of himself that defied the one created throughout the War of 1812.

In 1826, Madison succeeded Jefferson as the University of Virginia's second president.  He remained in the position until his death in 1836.

Madison's last foray in politics, however, came in 1829, when he served as a delegate to a Virginia Constitutional Convention.  As an author of the original Constitution, Madison was a sensible choice to help remodel Virginia's state constitution.  The main issue with the Constitution was its imperfect representation; the document did not adequately represent a growing population in the western part of the state.  Westerners also wanted to extend the vote to all white men; easterners, however, only wanted land-owners to have the vote.  In the end, renters were extended the vote, but not all white men.  Madison was disappointed.

The remaining half decade of Madison's life was spent in despair.  His efforts at the second Virginia Convention were ineffectual.  Worse, Madison felt his failed Presidency would be a stain on his legacy.  Madison spent the remaining years of his life in debt, and had to sell slaves and property to manage his finances.

When Madison died in 1836 at the age of 85, Americans barely noticed his passing.  Though he was the last of the Founding Fathers to die, his absence from American politics for nearly two decades had left him largely forgotten.

Legacy

While Madison spent the final years of his life depressed about his legacy, he would likely be pleased to know that Americans remember him quite fondly. Of course, Madison's powerful legacy has subsisted in spite of his Presidency.  As a President, though, Madison was not necessarily terrible.  While the U.S. was demoralized as a result of the War of 1812, the nation ultimately lost nothing substantial from the conflict, and as a bit of a bonus, the nation gained its national anthem and a military hero out of the conflict.  Andrew Jackson and the Star Spangled Banner remain tokens of the War of 1812 that endure in American life today.

The strength of Madison's legacy will never be found in the War of 1812.  Instead, it will be found decades earlier, at the Constitutional Convention.  Madison had a masterful intellect, and was unquestionably the thinker and writer most responsible for the Constitution of the United States, widely viewed as the greatest and most enduring constitution in the world.  Today, that document serves as the longest operating governing constitution anywhere on the planet, so it’s no surprise that achievement is at the heart of Madison's legacy.  Without his rational, reasoning and discerning mind, the United States might very well not resemble its stable and democratic government.

Madison was not only the author of the Constitution; he was also largely responsible for the document's ratification by the states.  Madison's lucid arguments in the
Federalist Papers
continue to be cited by politicians and the Supreme Court today, and the Father of the Constitution was most able to convince the respective states that a national government was worth pursuing.  Without him, states like Virginia and New York might have preferred to continue governing the nation under the Articles of Confederation.  And shortly after the Constitution's adoption, Madison didn't just live with it.  Instead, he improved it by writing the Bill of Rights.

The qualities that made Madison so apt at writing constitutions and arguing for their passage, however, ironically made him an inept President.  Being able to reason through disagreements required the ability to understand and flirt with new and diverse ideas.  Madison could not convince his fellow Virginians of the need for a Constitution if he had not previously espoused their own views.  As an intellectual, Madison was open-minded, a freethinker, and somewhat indecisive.  This inability to commit rigidly to one position strengthened his role as a compromiser in legislative bodies and constitutional conventions.  However, it weakened his abilities as an administrator and President.  The War of 1812 was largely derided as “Mr. Madison’s War” by the Federalists, but Madison had even relegated himself to the sidelines while Congress debated whether a declaration of war was appropriate. A more decisive President might have led the war better than Madison was able to.

Regardless, Madison goes down in history as the Father of the Constitution.  And since that document continues to govern the United States of America, it is literally Madison's very mind that rules from sea to shining sea.  That alone is an enormous accomplishment, and it has earned Madison a legendary place in American history.

Bibliography

Brinkley, Alan and Davis Dyer. 
The American Presidency: The Authoritative Reference. 
New

              York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004.

Brookhiser, Richard. 
James Madison
.  New York: Basic Books, 2011.

Madison, James. 
James Madison: Writing, 1772-1836. 
New York: Library of America, 1999.

Smith, Carter and Allen Weinstein. 
Presidents: Every Question Answered. 
New York: Hylas

              Publishing, 2004.

Andrew Jackson

Chapter 1: Early Life and Education, 1767-1786

Birth and Upbringing

On the Ides of March in 1767, Andrew Jackson was born in the Waxhaw Settlement, South Carolina.  He was a first-generation son of Scotch-Irish immigrants from Northern Ireland who had only recently come to the United States; his parents, Elizabeth Hutchinson and Andrew Jackson, had left Northern Ireland for North America in 1765. 

Despite Jackson’s subsequent fame, he would come to be celebrated as a common American, and it is thus fitting that some of the details of his early childhood are still unclear. For example, it is still unclear where exactly Jackson’s parents first landed in the New World, though historians speculate that they would have landed in Philadelphia. What is known is that the Jacksons, both in their mid-20s, quickly moved South to an area between North and South Carolina that was heavily populated by fellow Presbyterians from Northern Ireland.  This was a critical part of the attraction of the Waxhaw region: other members of the Jackson family already lived in the region, providing an intact group of support from the start.

Two years later, this support would prove critical, because Andrew Jackson's birth came amid enormous tragedy for the Jackson family.  Jackson’s father had died in an accident less than three weeks before his birth, and shortly after his burial, Elizabeth gave birth to her third son in the home of her sister, Jane.  She named the son Andrew in honor of her late husband.

While this is the generally accepted version of the story, it is not the only possible history.  Because the border between North and South Carolina was not surveyed at the time, the exact location of Jackson's birth would determine which state he was born in.  If, indeed, he was born in his Aunt Jane's house, then he was born in South Carolina.  However, another side of the story claims Jackson's mother gave birth in another sister's home, in which case he would have been born in North Carolina. History has generally favored his birthplace to be South Carolina, but certain historians still claim the exact location was in North Carolina.  Jackson himself claimed South Carolina as his birthplace.

Regardless, what is certain is that Andrew Jackson was born into a family facing dire circumstances.  He grew up in his aunt's household, but because his aunt was sickly, Jackson's mother tended to most of the housework.  Thus, Jackson’s mother was constantly working, as did much of the Jackson clan from a young age.  The home was a chaotic one, with Aunt Jane's eight children and Elizabeth’s three. 

Education

Despite the poor circumstances, Elizabeth held out high hopes for her youngest son, who showed enormous piety as a child.  She thought Andrew could one day become a Presbyterian minister, and she managed enough money to provide a modest education for the young Jackson.  As a child, he attended a local academy, headed by a Dr. William Humphries.