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Show FIVE MINUTE CHATS ABOUT ? OUR PRESIDENTS , By JAMES MORGAN S a JAMES MADISON O Q 1751, March 16 James Madi. son born at Port Conway, Con-way, Va. 1772 Graduated at Princeton. 1776 In Virginia legislature. 1780-3, 1785-8 In Continental congress. 1787 In constitutional convention. conven-tion. 1789-97 In congress. 1794 Married Dorothy Todd Payne. 1801-8 Secretary of state. O O AS JAMES MADISON made a great name for himself before entering the presidency and added nothing to It while In the White House, it must be that he was a good deal of a man but not much of a president. Like all the more famous Virginians, Virgin-ians, Madison was not of the highest aristocracy, but the son of a plain, well-to-do farmer in an outlying county. coun-ty. His early life was passed at Mont-pelier, Mont-pelier, the farm which his grandfather had wrested from the Indians ; from It he drew his, only private income and at last he was buried In its soil. He wn dependent on his father until he was fifty, when the latter died and the place became his own, with 100 slaves, who continued always to address ad-dress him simply as "Master Jimmy." Standing only five feet six inches and one-quarter inches, he was, with Grant the smallest of our presidents. If s S A f ' 1 I Dolly Madison. Naturally thin and frail his zeal for study nearly wrecked his health while , a student at Princeton college, where for months at a time he slept only three hours Out of the 24. Unfitted for military duty when the Revolution came, he went to the Virginia legislature legisla-ture instead. Yet this seemingly broken-down young man was destined to be the longest lived of all the presidents, presi-dents, with the single exception of John Adams. When a candidate for re-election to the legislature, Madison revolted against the old Virginia custom of setting up the drinks. His morality was mistaken for stinginess and the thirsty voters flocked to the capacious capa-cious barrel of his opponent, who was elected. The defeated candidate, had to wait a dozen years for his first chance to distinguish himself. Still no time was lost, for, while he was waiting, he diligently prepared to meet opportunity when It should come and made a close study of all governments, ancient and modem. If Madison had not been crossed and blessed in love, posterity might not. catch him on his human side nt all and only yawn over this prosy, serious, studious, cool-tempered unaggressive, weazened, little great man. He was already a mature bachelor of thirty-two thirty-two and a member of the Continental congress, when a sixteen-year-old girl In his Philadelphia boarding house was ;the first to touch a soft spot in his heart. A young clergyman who hung nnd sighed over her harplschord cut him out, and he was painfully awakened from his first dream of love by a letter of dismissal. Madison wss past forty, and well Into his Indian summer, when he became be-came involved in still another boarding board-ing house romance at Philadelphia. Only, instead of a lady boarder, he fell in love this time with a landlady's land-lady's daughter, Dolly Payne Todd, who was only twenty-six, had lost her husband nnd was living with her mother, moth-er, "who received Into her house a few gentlemen boarders." Among them was Senator Aaron Burr of New York. Madison himself was staying at nn-otlier nn-otlier house, where he and two other future presidents, Jefferson and Monroe, were living three In a room. There the fame of the pretty young Quakeress traveled to him, and he asked Burr they were at Princeton together to take him to see her. The match named up In the flash of an eye, anil Dolly and her boy wore borne away to Mnntpelier, whore she proved her tactfiilness and kindliness by dwelling in peace under the same roof with her mother-in-law thirty-live veers. A FUGITIVE PRESIDENT 1809 James Madison, inaugu. I rated President, aged fifty. I seven. j Fi 1812 (June 19) War d(. dared. I 1814 (Aug. 24-27) In night : I from the British. (Dx uc 28) treaty of peace. J M 1817 Madison retired from I ci Presidency. 1 1 fa 1826 Rector In University o( I C Virginia. I t 1829 In constitutional con. I vention. I 1836 (June 28) dierj, agtd I v eighty-five. i I BUT for the smiles of his blor I i Ing Dolly, Madison's admlnistr,. I tfon would be a desert without s, I oasis, over whose dreary expanse tk, I weary biographer would wand I athirst for human anecdotes, h I bubbling spirits relieved the nusteriti I of Jeffersonian simplicity and wc I her a popularity that has been equaled I if at all, among the mistresses of th I White House, only by Mrs. Cleveland I Unless Grant must be excepted I Madison is the only president who I found the presidency an nuticllnins I to his career. One of the really great I law-givers of the nation, he was I without executive force. I With a weak cabinet, this gentle, I sweet tempered, peace loving scholar I found himself adrift on the turbid I sea of fhe great Napoleonic war. I Perhaps it was no longer possible to I keep us out of the war when at last the I United States was the only neutral I left in the civilized world. I After 20 years of kicking and cuff- I ing from both sides in the European I conflict, bullied by England and lied I to by Napoleon, the country was sore I all over when the "warlunvks" of con- I gress, under the youthful Henry Clay. seized the tiller of the ship of state I from Madison's irresolute hand and I recklessly pointed the vessel straight I into the teeth of the storm. The sea- I board East was more for peace and at I that time the military section was the I new West, where the Tennesseans mid I Kentuckians, Indianians and Ohioans I were lustily shouting "On to Canada!" I Overborne by their rash counsels, Mad- I ison consented, as he said, to "throw I forward the flag of the country, sure I that the people would press onward I and defend it." I Without competent civilian military I leaders, without financial credit, with- I out war equipment, the people could I not press onward, as any history of I the dismal w ir of 1812 will tell you. J Even the capital was left undefend- I ed, and Madison, "in a little round I hat with a big cockade." ran about In I helpless bewilderment as the British I marched upon Washington. I With the invaders entering at one I side of the defenseless town, the I president fled at the other. As he I turned he saw the flames shooting up I A " i James Madison. behind him, he fled faster and farther. While the British commander was blowing out candles on his dinner table ta-ble that he might feast in the lipht of the burning White House, Its fugitive fugi-tive master was hiding in a forest. After an absence of three days, heavy-hearted, shattered, houseless president returned to view tlie charred walls of his official residence and of the capitol. At every turn he wn.s greeted by ugly mtitlerlngs of the general disposition to make him the scapegoat for all the national shortcomings short-comings In a war that had been thrust upon him. Rut with victory at Ncw Orleans anil the return of peace, the voice of the faultfinder was drowned in the hum of sudden prosperity. And In the closing days of his administration adminis-tration Madison was cheered by imi".v assurances that his countrymen wen' not forgetful of the 40 years that hf had served them in pure devotion. Like John Adams, he emerged fmi" his retirement to sit In the constitutional constitu-tional convention of his state where the aged statesman closed I'1 active public life, as he had "pencil It, with a sentiment of humanity f"r the slaves. ' (Copyi icllt. 1321). by J. nil. " .V..rjMl I |