Madison and Jefferson (98 page)

A few days later, in receipt of the
Boston Centinel
issue covering the rout at Bladensburg, the
Patriot
editor lashed out at his New England Federalist counterpart, whom he called a “veteran news-perverter,” for striving “to gull his willing dupes” with assertions that those who led and fought bravely were Federalists, and Federalists alone. To set the record straight, the
Patriot
editor expressed pride that Republicans and Federalists were fighting side by side; it hardly mattered to them who officered a company, so long as it acquitted itself well in battle. This was no time, he charged, for any to promote “distrust and dissention, when all should unite for the public safety”; and it was no time for Americans anywhere to have to suffer a “bloated ignoramus” of an editor who would act to undo the growing fellowship claimed by citizens of different regions of the country.
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That newspapermen could be cruel no one doubted. A Federalist paper in Delaware printed a couplet to memorialize Bladensburg: “Fly Monroe, fly! run Armstrong, run! / Were the last words of Madison.” On first reports, the
Salem Gazette
, in Massachusetts, ran the headline, “
THE PRESIDENT—LOST
!” It went on to elaborate: “Ever since the Battle of Bladensburg,
MADISON
has been missing—he does not even know where he is himself—entirely lost and bewildered!” Cowardice had always been a favorite charge of Federalists,
and now Madison had become as susceptible to the charge as Jefferson. The unoriginal Delaware paper was quick to assign blame to “the idolators of Jefferson and Madison” for the military catastrophe: the “jacobin administration,” “feeble, improvident, disgraced,” had reduced the nation to a shadow of its former self, “by driving from our councils the pupils of Washington!”
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The psychological power of the press can be acute in a time of war. Preliminary intelligence reaching Keene, New Hampshire, a full week after the burning of Washington, reported with horror what its distant citizens could only imagine happening at the seat of power:

Madison was not concerned at this point with the battles being waged between rival editors. He had to reassemble his government. Though he and Dolley had made prior arrangements to meet in the event that they were separated, it took a full day before they found each other at a tavern on the Virginia side of the Potomac. The British, having accomplished what they came for, pulled out. Now Madison could inspect the damage and begin to deal with the conditions Washingtonians faced. He would send for Dolley when convinced that the way was clear for her return.

On August 28, after going their separate ways for a time, Madison and Monroe returned together to the charred city. Added to the intimate circle was Richard Rush, the president’s third in a line of attorneys general. He stayed close as the short and scrawny commander in chief rode from place to place seeking information. Ferried across the Potomac, Madison was deeply angered to view the destruction all around him. He was irritated, too, by reports that came to him from residents of the District who expressed disgust with the government for its failure to stage any meaningful defense.

The
National Intelligencer
, its office ravaged during the invasion, reopened with a vengeance a few days later, and reported that the British
commander had confronted its editor with the “peculiar slang of the Common Sewer.” Countering the expected condemnation of Madison, the first postinvasion issue assured: “The President of the United States was not only active during the engagement but … has been personally active ever since. Everyone joins in attributing to him the greatest merit.”
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Armstrong came under heavy fire from residents of Washington and from Congress. His effigy was etched in the walls of the burnt Capitol building, where he was shown hanging from a gallows. At this low moment, the president recommended to Armstrong that he take temporary retirement. Madison then made Monroe acting secretary of war, so that his fellow Virginian held two cabinet positions simultaneously.

Before John Armstrong exits the narrative too abruptly, there is reason to believe that his firing may not have been quite as simple as a pro-Madison position would describe it. In June, when the D.C. militia mustered, Armstrong expressed disapproval of Madison’s choice to lead that body—indeed, it was by all accounts a poor choice. Discomfort grew. Two months later, when the nation’s capital proved indefensible, Madison and Monroe must already have been calculating that Armstrong could be made into an easy scapegoat. Better this than to leave an impression that the presidential hopeful from New York was ousted for strictly political reasons. In this alternative narrative, Armstrong was really no less competent than Madison or Monroe. It can be argued that he was simply not given enough of a chance to prove himself in the months leading up to Cockburn’s landing.
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On the other hand, if Madison wanted to be rid of his disagreeable secretary of war, why would he have suggested only a
temporary
retirement from the office? Was Madison letting him down in stages, or biding his time and leaving his options open? The president’s own memorandum of their last meeting states that they parted on friendly terms. Navy Secretary William Jones, who was close by, thought differently, recapping events in great detail to Alexander Dallas in Pennsylvania. He bemoaned the lack of a response to the British landing and wrote that Armstrong’s impulse was to “divest himself of all responsibility” for the failure to protect Washington. To Jones, the story Armstrong told was built on a combination of “cunning” and “insufferable … vanity,” anything but “candour.” Armstrong’s only qualification for high office, according to Jones, was his bluster. “This man imposed himself on society without one useful, valuable quality, either social, civil or military,” he upbraided, explaining what really happened: “The President stated facts to Armstrong” and referred to a
widening prejudice against him, shared “to a certain and considerable degree” by the president himself; then on grounds of “expediency,” Madison asked Armstrong to retire from his duties “until those passions had subsided.”

This would seem to have been the gist of Madison’s temporary, or not so temporary, dismissal of Armstrong—a few words that could be interpreted in more than one way. Jones, as one of those highly prejudiced against Armstrong, concluded his statement to Dallas with the simple and dismissive “I am glad we are clear of him.” His remarks about Monroe, in the same letter, were hardly more complimentary: “He has a strong military passion but without the requisite qualifications.” If Monroe moved back to the War Department, Jones ventured, “I predict his fall … His judgement I think in most things extremely feeble.” It did not stop there. Overall, Madison’s secretary of the navy had little confidence in the cabinet. “With due humility I feel my own nakedness,” he wrote, “and perceive that the costume of my colleagues is not of the firmest texture.” At this low moment in the war, he itched to return to private life, but rather than abandon Madison, he agreed to wait until December to end his public service.
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Whatever the ultimate truth may be, Armstrong headed for Baltimore, no longer a factor in the war. The Madisons, meanwhile, had no home and moved in with Dolley’s sister and her husband. Though James Madison had never given an indication that he possessed a military mind, he understood the necessity at this moment to show that he was in command. Aided by the pen of Attorney General Rush, he issued a presidential proclamation on September 1, in which he accused the British of a “deliberate disregard of the principles of humanity and the rules of civilized warfare” and appealed to citizens to “unite their hearts and hands” and come to the defense of “exposed and threatened places.” As they dutifully published the proclamation, Federalist newspapers took pains to agree with Admiral Cockburn that the burning of Washington was done for a particular reason and strictly in retaliation for the U.S. “conflagration and destruction of property” inside Canada; on that basis, Madison had shown “audacity” in claiming that the fault lay on one side only.

It took all capital letters to describe Madison’s contemptible crusade: it was “
A WICKED, CAUSELESS WAR
,” designed only to help one political party. “Not a finger will be raised in support of Mr. Madison’s grounds of war, nor
his
honour,” declared the editors of the
Boston Spectator.
As the president ranged about the scorched city, they would hold his feet to the fire, as it were.
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Opposition newspapers suddenly had a warehouseful of material to use against Madison and his top appointees. They would see to it that the sack of Washington defined his presidency. Hanson’s
Federal Republican
giddily interpreted the president’s mind in the wake of the British invasion. In “Little Jemmy, or Poor Madison,” the Georgetown editor assumed that the president was “terrified” lest the people realize that he and the unworthy Armstrong had “consorted together in the ruin and betrayal of the capital”; for how could such self-immolation have taken place, if not on purpose? As absurd as that sounded, the same newspaper looked for new ways to mock and found solace in song as the increasingly unpopular war continued. One particular satire, with its added allusion to Jefferson, was meant to be sung to the tune of “Yankee Doodle”:

Without money enough to wage war, it went, “Jemmy’s plans are all blank.”
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Under the pressure he now faced, and amid the devastation, Madison, by all accounts, retained his full presence of mind. Though he did not entirely trust Monroe, under these circumstances he had to rely on him more; and Monroe’s confidence in his own abilities as a war chief filled whatever gap existed in Madison’s battle plan. One can only surmise how Madison greeted news of the successful defense of Baltimore’s Fort McHenry in September, a defense led by none other than the now sixty-two-year-old Maryland militia general (concurrently U.S. senator) Samuel Smith. In spite of past differences over Robert Smith’s performance at State and the brothers’ constant sniping at Gallatin, Smith struck Monroe as able, and the president was now letting Monroe make more war-related decisions.
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Madison and Jefferson had been out of contact during the months when Chesapeake communities were feeling the might of the British forces. On September 24 Jefferson reopened communications. “It is very long since I troubled you with a letter,” he noted. The decision not to write had been based on “discretion, and not want of inclination.” He knew that Madison had more than enough concerns, but he was too moved to let any more time pass: “In the late events at Washington I have felt so much for you that I cannot withhold the expression of my sympathies.” He absolved
Madison of responsibility for the burning of the federal city, assuming he had done all he could and relied on others to execute his orders.

Jefferson understood that words would be little solace. “I know,” he said, “that when such failures happen they afflict even those who have done everything they could to prevent them.” As a proud man who, as governor, fled to the hinterlands when Benedict Arnold ravaged Virginia, he added meaningfully: “Had General Washington himself been now at the head of our affairs, the same event would probably have happened.” It seems unlikely that Madison would have thought to compare his predicament to anything Washington had faced in the Revolution; but he must have been comforted, at least a little, by Jefferson’s proposition that some military setbacks were unavoidable. Never one to admit defeat easily, Jefferson predicted that the naval war on the Canadian frontier would continue to give the British pause. “While our enemies cannot but feel shame for their barbarous atchievements at Washington,” he assured, “they will be stung to the soul by these repeated victories over them on that element on which they wish the world to think them invincible … We can beat them gun to gun, ship to ship, and fleet to fleet.”

Time had come for Madison and Jefferson to address their differences on wartime finance, which Jefferson had remarked upon without detailing. The National Bank begun by Hamilton had not had its twenty-year charter renewed. Jefferson had opposed it in 1791, and nothing for him had changed. He wished to find a means of paying for the war other than the issuance of state bank notes (in the absence of a national bank). Paper money always made him uneasy, and state banks had recently stopped specie payments. But for Madison, times had changed, and he was no longer opposed to the bank, as he had been in 1791. For the United States to conduct its war, it would have to borrow. Rather than write bluntly to Jefferson, he communicated only in general terms: “To a certain extent, paper, in some form or another, will, as a circulating medium, answer the purpose your plan contemplates.”

When financing of the war was debated in Congress in 1814, Dolley’s former brother-in-law James G. Jackson proposed a new national bank, and Jefferson’s son-in-law Eppes opposed it. Through their proxies, then, the bank was a point of contention for the third and fourth presidents. When Madison dismissed his plan to privilege Treasury notes over all other sources of funding for the war, Jefferson was stunned. But Madison explained that relying on Treasury notes would only replicate the unhappy situation during the Revolution, when currency issued by the Continental
Congress rapidly depreciated in value. He even told Jefferson that he felt the national bank of Great Britain was the best model to follow! Perhaps there was no time when Madison and Jefferson’s economic thinking was farther apart than this.
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