Last week, my wife and I stood in the room in which James Madison died. That’s an interesting feeling. I remember how it felt to be at Mount Vernon and look upon George Washington’s bed. It all gets very “real” when you think about the life of such an influential person…and that all such lives end.
Biographers are always trying to search for the poignant details in moments of death. Madison’s final moments are no exception. Much of what we know of James Madison’s final moments comes from his slave and valet, Paul Jennings. Other snippets come from those who visited him during his last days. One of my favorite details was Madison’s decision to forego life-extending drugs. The simple story goes like this.
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had both died on the same day, July 4, 1826 — 50 years to the day after the Declaration of Independence. (Will we ever recover from this fact?) James Monroe, Madison’s good friend, did his patriotic duty and died on July 4, 1831. If there was ever a good day to die, July 4 would be it.
It is June 27, 1836. Madison is sick and dying. He is prepared. He knows he has been headed downhill. It was natural, I suppose, for those around him to anticipate the best. Perhaps, they thought, divine providence will ordain that Madison will die on July 4, 1836, on the 60th anniversary. Someone then had the bright idea that perhaps they could just take matters into their own hands and give him some stimulants to keep him alive for just a few more days. Fortunately, they asked Mr. Madison his opinion.
Madison said no.
So, he dies on his very own day — June 28, 1836 — a full week ahead of the day everyone else would have picked for him. Even to the end, Madison was more cerebral than sentimental. Madison knew that whatever had been done was done. His time was over. And he knew his role. His role had not been to bask in limelight or leave a lasting impression of a charismatic leader. Any limelight he enjoyed was due more to Dolley’s blessed presence and personality than his own, though his own light was bright. It was the light of hard thought and hard work that would end in a legacy greater than almost any legacy one could conceive. His thinking and work and political acumen helped to bring us a Constitution — the document that has remained our national compass for 227 years.
“We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union…”
For the 47 years since he had helped to pen the Constitution, Madison had been thinking about the Union. What are all of the implications of a Union? What are the many dangers to keeping the Union in tact? He knew that he wanted his final thoughts to the nation to be thoughts about the vital importance of the Union, so in 1834, before he was sick, Madison wrote down his final note, to be released posthumously. In it, he gives these last sage words.
“The advice nearest to my heart and deepest in my convictions is that the Union of the States be cherished and perpetuated. Let the open enemy to it be regarded as a Pandora with her box opened; and the disguised one, as the Serpent creeping with his deadly wiles into Paradise.”
Madison biographer, Ralph Ketcham, points out that these weren’t just last idle thoughts of desire, but they were the culmination of a lifetime thinking about what would “bring the social justice necessary to fulfill the legal and moral equality of man.” The union, the unity of these diverse states, would in the end be what would create social justice, universal suffrage and real personal liberty. This is a prescient thought if one considers that it was in fact the restoration of the Union after the Civil War that started the steamroller of real personal liberty that would take another century to unfold. Madison “cherished liberty because it could open to man the opportunities due his limitless potential.” If Madison could’ve taken stimulants to watch that saga play out, he probably would’ve acquiesced.
On June 27, nearing his end, Madison had dictated a summary of his friendship with Thomas Jefferson to Jefferson biographer, Professor George Tucker. Madison wrote that he and Jefferson shared,
“A sincere and steadfast co-operation in promoting such a reconstruction of our political system as would provide for the permanent liberty and happiness of the United States.”
The experiment in liberty was just off the ground, like a few hundred yards of air at Kitty Hawk. Time could thrash it and sink all of his life’s work. His advice was like that of a protective parent saying, “Be careful with what you can see happening. Be careful with what you can’t see happening. I didn’t raise you to see you run around with the wrong crowd. ”
And so for the man who was often more mind than man, we stood for a few moments in his dying room and bid adieu, wishing we could elect more illustrious figures of mental metal — those who would know and understand how to cherish and perpetuate this Union.
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