James Madison: A Life Reconsidered (58 page)

Washington City became the capital of the United States in 1800, and to the secretary of state-designate and Mrs. Madison, arriving by carriage in late April 1801, it might have looked something like this.

When James and Dolley Madison arrived in Washington City in 1801, they found just one wing of the Capitol finished.

One of the early diplomatic challenges for Secretary of State Madison occurred when President Jefferson, who had his own ideas of etiquette, escorted Dolley Madison rather than Elizabeth Merry, wife of the British minister, shown here, into a dinner at the president’s house.

The Spanish minister, the marquis de Yrujo, who was married to the former Sally McKean, a childhood friend of Dolley Madison, took up the Merrys’ cause. Secretary of State Madison helped control the diplomatic damage.

Marquis de Casa Yrujo
and
Marchioness de Casa Yrujo,
Gilbert Charles Stuart. Collection of Thomas R. and Susan McKean; photographs courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

John Randolph of Roanoke was Madison’s bitter enemy. Eccentric to the point of instability, Congressman Randolph railed with such vitriol on the floor of the House while Madison was secretary of state and president that his speeches became largely ineffective.

Anna Payne, Dolley Madison’s younger sister, who was virtually raised by the Madisons, had her portrait done by Gilbert Stuart. The painter entertained himself by shaping the curtain in the background into his own profile.

In 1804, Anna Payne married Congressman Richard Cutts at the Washington Navy Yard. His later financial insolvency would be expensive for James Madison.

John Payne Todd, Dolley Madison’s son from her first marriage, was a toddler when the Madisons married. He grew up to be a handsome, hard-drinking gambler.

The USS
Chesapeake
as she might have appeared before the British frigate
Leopard
launched a surprise attack on her in June 1807. Madison called the action, which helped provoke the War of 1812, “lawless and bloody.”

President Madison welcomed news of the stunning victory of the USS
Constitution
over the British frigate
Guerriere
. The message arrived in Washington as the presidential election of 1812 approached.

Convinced that the British would never attack Washington, John Armstrong, President Madison’s secretary of war, dragged his feet when it came to the capital’s defense.

Madison’s concern that the British would attack the capital city proved well founded. British troops burned the Capitol, the White House, and other public buildings on August 24, 1814.