Telling the Madisonian Story

My trip to Monpelier.

A few weekends ago, I visited James Madison’s Montpelier with my family. Obviously, I’m a huge fan of Madison. Federalist No. 10 might be my favorite thing to read, so I was very excited to go.

The experience was good, and I learned a lot, especially about the relationship between James and Dolley Madison. I picked up a great book and definitely plan to go back. But if I’m being honest, I don’t believe they’re telling the right story of Madison.

They’re telling the story of Madison the man, the husband, the architect of the Constitution—and they’re also telling the story of slavery, because Montpelier was a plantation. And that history is important. Because this was Madison’s home, it makes it even more important to tell the right story.

Slavery and Madison are intertwined much deeper than just the fact that he owned slaves. Madison was at the center of a constitution that extended the sphere of power all the way to the people. He was there for the Great Compromise and the Three-Fifths Compromise. He explained in the Federalist Papers—Federalist 54—about the absurdity that slavery presented: that the slave was counted as both person and property. He exposed the contradiction embedded in the compromise and, in doing so, left a roadmap for future generations to solve the problem of unequal representation.

It’s important to note that while Madison explained the absurdity, he didn’t outright call it so. He was trying to reconcile the contradiction as a necessary compromise. And while Madison didn’t explicitly leave a “roadmap,” his writings (particularly Federalist 10, 51-54, and his Convention notes) provide a conceptual framework for understanding representation, factionalism, and compromise. Future leaders like Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass would look to Madison's writings to understand the contradiction between liberty and slavery from our founding, helping to bridge the next divide.

Like many of the founders, Madison believed slavery was wrong, but struggled with how to rid our country of it. Still, each of them took incremental steps. George Washington freed his slaves. Thomas Jefferson drafted the first version of the Northwest Ordinance in 1784, and the final version was passed in 1787, prohibiting slavery in the Northern Territory even before the Constitution was adopted. Madison wrote, revealing the tensions and contradictions in the founding documents. James Monroe later signed the Missouri Compromise, attempting to isolate slavery in the South.

The imbalance of representation caused by the Three-Fifths Compromise gave Southern slaveholders more power in Congress, but the founders expected the nation to grow—"from sea to shining sea"—and believed that as the country expanded, the influence of slavery would weaken. The idea was to extend the sphere, and over time, liberty would prevail.

Each of these men contributed in different ways. They were leading different groups of people, at different times, in different ways, away from the injustice of slavery and toward a freer and more prosperous future. But something changed in the Age of Jackson. Ambition failed to check ambition. A faction in the South used their representational advantage to expand slavery, not contain it. And even through this dark antebellum period, the last thread from the founding, John Quincy Adams, fought against the imbalance represented by the Slavocracy in Congress.

And now, when we look back at our founding, our view is tainted. We forget the principles we stood for: liberty, justice, and representation. These ideas feel tarnished. However, the compromises that Madison and the other founders made—the processes they focused on and the balance they sought to create—are the reasons the Union has prevailed. That’s the reason America could fulfill its founding declaration that “All men are created equal.”

If we want to grow and overcome our worst selves, then we need to have people and events to look up to. That is why telling the right story of Madison matters.

In almost every room of the house, slavery is mentioned. After you exit, there are two exhibits that focus on slavery. But only in one or two rooms do you hear about the Constitution or the Federalist Papers. In none of them do you hear about representation—how the imbalance of power shaped our history, and how the founders tried to contain slavery for defeat by the next generation.

My favorite part of the tour was the story about how James and Dolly worked together to organize and translate his notes from the Federal Convention, because he understood the importance of explaining why people did the things they did. But Montpelier focuses mostly on what happened: yes, Madison had slaves. Yes, the country allowed slavery at its founding. But why? How did it spread—or how was it, at times, contained? How did the first founding lead to the second Founding, and the 13^th, 14^th, and 15^th amendments?

Those are the questions the tour should seek to explain, tying the story of Madison and Slavery together so we can understand both just a little better.

The story of Madison and all our founders is a story about process. About balancing power. About representation and self-government. And that story should be told fully and clearly.

Peace & Love,

Jeff Mayhugh