Presidents in Retirement: James Madison
James Madison left office in March of 1817, following the inauguration of his successor James Monroe. Madison was 65 years old at the time and he retired to his Virginia home called Montpelier, not far from Thomas Jefferson's home of Monticello. As with both Washington and Jefferson, Madison left the presidency a poorer man than when he came in. His plantation experienced a steady financial decline, caused by dropping prices for tobacco and also because his stepson, John Payne Todd, had mismanaged the property.
In retirement, Madison would occasionally became involved in public affairs, and he provided advice to some of the subsequent Presidents including Monroe and Andrew Jackson. He kept quiet during the public debate over the Missouri Compromise, but privately he complained about the North's opposition to the extension of slavery. During the controversial election of 1824, Madison had good relations with all four of the major candidates and so he stayed out of the race, refusing to endorse any one candidate. When Andrew Jackson became President and faced a challenge from John C. Calhoun over high tariffs, Madison publicly disavowed the Nullification movement and argued that no state had the right to secede.
Madison helped Thomas Jefferson establish the University of Virginia, and in 1826, after the death of Jefferson, Madison was appointed as the second rector of the university (Jefferson had been the first). He retained the position as college chancellor for ten years until his death in 1836.
In 1829, at the age of 78, Madison was chosen as a representative to the Virginia Constitutional Convention for revision of the commonwealth's constitution. This would be his last appearance as a statesman. Apportionment of adequate representation was the central issue at the convention for the western districts of Virginia. The increased population in the Piedmont and western parts of the state were not proportionately represented in the legislature. Western reformers also wanted to extend suffrage to all white men, instead of the prevailing property ownership requirement. Madison agreed with this position and was disappointed at the failure to extend suffrage to all white males in the state.
In his later years, Madison became highly concerned about his historical legacy. He began to modify letters and other documents in his possession, changing days and dates, and adding and deleting words and sentences. By his late seventies, Madison's self-editing of his own archived letters and older materials seemed almost to become an obsession. He edited a letter he had written to Thomas Jefferson criticizing the Marquis de Lafayette. In his revised version, Madison not only inked out original passages but in other correspondence he even forged Jefferson's handwriting.
During the last six years of his life, Madison was experiencing significant financial problems, and some historians have speculated that this adversely affected him both physically and mentally. For almost an entire year from 1831 to 1832, he was bedridden, and suffered great anxiety. His health slowly deteriorated through the early-to-mid-1830s. On the morning of June 28, 1836, he died of congestive heart failure at Montpelier, at the age of 85. That morning he was given his breakfast, which he tried eating but was unable to swallow. His favorite niece, Nellie Madison Willis was with him and asked him, "What is the matter, Uncle James?" According to her account, Madison died immediately after he replied, "Nothing more than a change of mind, my dear."
Madison was buried in the family cemetery at Montpelier, one of the last prominent members of the Revolutionary War generation. His last will and testament left significant sums to the American Colonization Society, Princeton, and the University of Virginia, as well as $30,000 (over $900,000 in today's dollars) to his wife, Dolley. While this seems like a significant sum of money, apparently it was insufficient for Dolley to run Montpelier and she experienced financial troubles until her death in 1849. Sometime in the 1840s Dolley sold Montpelier, along with its remaining enslaved persons, and the furnishings in the house, in order to pay off outstanding debts. This account was written by Paul Jennings, one of Madison's enslaved persons, in his memoir:
"In the last days of her life, before Congress purchased her husband's papers, she was in a state of absolute poverty, and I think sometimes suffered for the necessaries of life. While I was a servant to Mr. Webster, he often sent me to her with a market-basket full of provisions, and told me whenever I saw anything in the house that I thought she was in need of, to take it to her. I often did this, and occasionally gave her small sums from my own pocket, though I had years before bought my freedom of her."
In retirement, Madison would occasionally became involved in public affairs, and he provided advice to some of the subsequent Presidents including Monroe and Andrew Jackson. He kept quiet during the public debate over the Missouri Compromise, but privately he complained about the North's opposition to the extension of slavery. During the controversial election of 1824, Madison had good relations with all four of the major candidates and so he stayed out of the race, refusing to endorse any one candidate. When Andrew Jackson became President and faced a challenge from John C. Calhoun over high tariffs, Madison publicly disavowed the Nullification movement and argued that no state had the right to secede.
Madison helped Thomas Jefferson establish the University of Virginia, and in 1826, after the death of Jefferson, Madison was appointed as the second rector of the university (Jefferson had been the first). He retained the position as college chancellor for ten years until his death in 1836.
In 1829, at the age of 78, Madison was chosen as a representative to the Virginia Constitutional Convention for revision of the commonwealth's constitution. This would be his last appearance as a statesman. Apportionment of adequate representation was the central issue at the convention for the western districts of Virginia. The increased population in the Piedmont and western parts of the state were not proportionately represented in the legislature. Western reformers also wanted to extend suffrage to all white men, instead of the prevailing property ownership requirement. Madison agreed with this position and was disappointed at the failure to extend suffrage to all white males in the state.
In his later years, Madison became highly concerned about his historical legacy. He began to modify letters and other documents in his possession, changing days and dates, and adding and deleting words and sentences. By his late seventies, Madison's self-editing of his own archived letters and older materials seemed almost to become an obsession. He edited a letter he had written to Thomas Jefferson criticizing the Marquis de Lafayette. In his revised version, Madison not only inked out original passages but in other correspondence he even forged Jefferson's handwriting.
During the last six years of his life, Madison was experiencing significant financial problems, and some historians have speculated that this adversely affected him both physically and mentally. For almost an entire year from 1831 to 1832, he was bedridden, and suffered great anxiety. His health slowly deteriorated through the early-to-mid-1830s. On the morning of June 28, 1836, he died of congestive heart failure at Montpelier, at the age of 85. That morning he was given his breakfast, which he tried eating but was unable to swallow. His favorite niece, Nellie Madison Willis was with him and asked him, "What is the matter, Uncle James?" According to her account, Madison died immediately after he replied, "Nothing more than a change of mind, my dear."
Madison was buried in the family cemetery at Montpelier, one of the last prominent members of the Revolutionary War generation. His last will and testament left significant sums to the American Colonization Society, Princeton, and the University of Virginia, as well as $30,000 (over $900,000 in today's dollars) to his wife, Dolley. While this seems like a significant sum of money, apparently it was insufficient for Dolley to run Montpelier and she experienced financial troubles until her death in 1849. Sometime in the 1840s Dolley sold Montpelier, along with its remaining enslaved persons, and the furnishings in the house, in order to pay off outstanding debts. This account was written by Paul Jennings, one of Madison's enslaved persons, in his memoir:
"In the last days of her life, before Congress purchased her husband's papers, she was in a state of absolute poverty, and I think sometimes suffered for the necessaries of life. While I was a servant to Mr. Webster, he often sent me to her with a market-basket full of provisions, and told me whenever I saw anything in the house that I thought she was in need of, to take it to her. I often did this, and occasionally gave her small sums from my own pocket, though I had years before bought my freedom of her."