5.  Ibid., 372.

  6.  Ibid., 376–77.

  7.  Ibid., 378–79; Raymond Walters Jr., Albert Gallatin: Jeffersonian Financier & Diplomat (New York: Macmillan, 1957), 195.

  8.  Joseph Nicholson to James Monroe, April 12, 1807, The Papers of James Monroe, 5:591–92.

  9.  Kevin R. C. Gutzman, Thomas Jefferson—Revolutionary: A Radical’s Struggle to Remake America (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2017), chapter 4.

  10.  Meriwether Lewis: Estimated Costs of Missouri River Expedition, January 18, 1803, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1950), 39:342.

  11.  Stephen E. Ambrose, Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 79.

  12.  TJ to the Senate and House of Representatives, January 18, 1803, PTJ, 350–53, at 352–53.

  13.  Peter J. Kastor, “The Many Wests of Thomas Jefferson,” Seeing Jefferson Anew—In His Time and Ours, John B. Boles and Randal L. Hall, eds. (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2010), 66–94, at 88.

  14.  Ibid., 66–94, at 82, 84.

  15.  Ambrose, Undaunted Courage, 397, 399.

  16.  Ibid., 399–400.

  17.  TJ, “Sixth Annual Message,” December 2, 1806, The Complete Jefferson—Containing His Major Writings, Published and Unpublished, Except His Letters, ed. Saul K. Padover (New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1943), 421–26, at 423–24 (Lewis and Clark), 424 (slavery), 425–26 (education, improvements, and amendment), 426 (military preparation).

  18.  Ibid., 421–26, at 422.

  19.  The most exhaustive effort to plumb the depths of Burr’s conspiracy took the author to “roughly fifty state and local historical societies, college and university special collections departments, history museums, and research centers” over nearly twenty years. James E. Lewis Jr., The Burr Conspiracy: Uncovering the Story of an Early American Crisis (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017), 463. Ultimately this book became an account of what people had thought Burr was doing, rather than a history of the conspiracy, because it became clear that Burr, superb lawyer that he was, knew how to cover his tracks.

  20.  Merrill Peterson, Thomas Jefferson & the New Nation: A Biography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), 847.

  21.  TJ, “Sixth Annual Message,” The Complete Jefferson, December 2, 1806, 421–26, at 422.

  22.  R. Kent Newmyer, The Treason Trial of Aaron Burr: Law, Politics, and the Character Wars of the New Nation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 1. Newmyer’s is the best account.

  23.  TJ, Entry for October 22, 1806, The Anas of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Franklin B. Sawvel (New York: Da Capo Press, 1970), 245–47, at 246–47.

  24.  Newmyer, The Treason Trial of Aaron Burr, 7; Forrest McDonald, The Presidency of Thomas Jefferson, (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1976), 121.

  25.  TJ, Entries for October 24 and 25, 1806, The Anas of Thomas Jefferson, 247–48.

  Chapter 27

  1.  Merrill Peterson, Thomas Jefferson & the New Nation, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), 842, says Burr’s goal was “creating an independent confederacy south of the Ohio.” Burr’s friendliest biographer, however, says his goal was to drive the Spanish out of Mexico and the Floridas. Nancy Isenberg, Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr (New York: Penguin, 2007), 290–92.

  2.  Forrest McDonald, The Presidency of Thomas Jefferson (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1976), 121.

  3.  Peterson, Thomas Jefferson & the New Nation, 848.

  4.  McDonald, The Presidency of Thomas Jefferson, 124; Peterson, Thomas Jefferson & the New Nation, 849.

  5.  R. Kent Newmyer, The Treason Trial of Aaron Burr: Law, Politics, and the Character Wars of the New Nation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 8. McDonald, The Presidency of Thomas Jefferson, 125.

  6.  R. Kent Newmyer, The Treason Trial of Aaron Burr: Law, Politics, and the Character Wars of the New Nation, 8.

  7.  McDonald, The Presidency of Thomas Jefferson, 127.

  8.  Ibid., 128; TJ, Special Message, January 22, 1807, The Complete Jefferson—Containing His Major Writings, Published and Unpublished, Except His Letters, ed. Saul K. Padover (New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1943), 427–31.

  9.  Newmyer, The Treason Trial of Aaron Burr, 56, et seq.

  10.  Ibid., 154.

  11.  Ibid., 146–48.

  12.  Ibid., 165.

  13.  Ibid., 178.

  14.  Ibid., 167.

  15.  TJ to Albert Gallatin, January 13, 1807, The Works of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Paul Leicester Ford (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904–05), 10:339–40.

  16.  Lawrence S. Kaplan, Thomas Jefferson: Westward the Course of Empire, (Wilmington, Delaware: SR Books, 1999), 160.

  17.  Ibid., 161–62.

  18.  JM, Draft “Chesapeake” Proclamation, June 29, 1807, The Works of Thomas Jefferson, 10:447–48, fn.

  19.  Ian W. Toll, Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy (New York: W. W. Norton, 2006), 294–98 (block quotation at 296).

  20.  TJ, “Chesapeake” Proclamation, July 2, 1807, The Works of Thomas Jefferson, 10:434–47.

  21.  Resolutions on the Chesapeake-Leopard Affair, August 3, 1807, The Papers of John C. Calhoun, ed. Robert L. Meriwether, et al. (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1959–2003), 1:34–7, and n. at 37.

  22.  Irving H. Bartlett, John C. Calhoun: A Biography (New York: W. W. Norton, 1993), 57.

  23.  Norman K. Risjord, Thomas Jefferson (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1994), 166.

  24.  Burton Spivak, Jefferson’s English Crisis: Commerce, Embargo, and the Republican Revolution (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1979), 102.

  25.  TJ, Special Message on Commercial Depredations, December 18, 1807, The Works of Thomas Jefferson, 10:530–31.

  26.  Spivak, Jefferson’s English Crisis, 105–06.

  27.  Ibid., 107.

  28.  Albert Gallatin to Joseph H. Nicholson, July 17, 1807, The Writings of Albert Gallatin, ed. Henry Adams (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1879), 1:338–40, at 338–39.

  29.  Spivak, Jefferson’s English Crisis, 107–08; Irving Brant, James Madison: Secretary of State, 1800–1809 (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1953), 401–03 (this and the next paragraph). As is nearly always the case, Brant approves of Madison’s argument.

  30.  R. B. Bernstein, Thomas Jefferson (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 167.

  31.  Gregory May, Jefferson’s Treasure: How Albert Gallatin Saved the New Nation from Debt (Washington, DC: Regnery, 2018), 167, 168.

  32.  TJ, Eighth Annual Message, November 8, 1808, The Works of Thomas Jefferson, 11:56–72, at 56–64.

  33.  May, Jefferson’s Treasure, 172.

  34.  Ibid., 174–75.

  Chapter 28

  1.  Entry for March [4], 1809, Margaret Bayard Smith, The First Forty Years of Washington Society, ed. Gaillard Hunt, 2nd edition (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1965), 58–64, at 59. Madison as orator often proved inaudible. Kevin R. C. Gutzman, James Madison and the Making of America (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2012), 201.

  2.  “President’s House Forty Years Ago,” 1841, Margaret Bayard Smith, The First Forty Years of Washington Society, 383–412, at 410.

  3.  JM, First Inaugural Address, [March 4, 1809], The Papers of James Madison: Presidential Series, ed. Robert A. Rutland, et al. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1984–) (hereafter, PJMPS), 1:15–18.

  4.  In Madison’s day, commas commonly were used to mark pauses in spoken prose. As the chief author of George Washington’s First Inaugural Address (Gutzman, James Madison and the Making of America, 242) and a close collaborator of Thomas Jefferson, Madison knew whereof he spoke.

  5.  Wilson Cary Nicholas to JM, ca. March 3, 1809, PJMPS, 1:10–11.

  6.  Irving Brant, James Madison: The President, 1809–1812 (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1956), 23. For Giles, see Dice Robins Anderson, William Branch Giles: A Study in the Politics of Virginia and the Nation from 1790 to 1830 (Menasha, WI: George Banta, 1914).

  7.  Brant, James Madison: The President, 22.

  8.  William Branch Giles to JM, February 27, 1809, Founders Online (National Archives), https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/99–01–02–4071.

  9.  Donald R. Hickey, The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict—Bicentennial Edition (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2012), 70.

  10.  Ralph Ketcham, James Madison: A Biography (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1990), 482.

  11.  Hickey, The War of 1812, 70.

  12.  Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson (New York: Random House, 2010), 521.

  13.  Henry Lee to JM, February 2, 1827, Founders Online (National Archives), https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/99–02–02–0898.

  14.  Madison’s reply, which his editor oddly consigned to a pages-long footnote, is JM to Henry Lee, February 1827, The Writings of James Madison, Comprising His Public Papers and His Private Correspondence, ed. Gaillard Hunt (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1910), 9:277–80, n.1.

  Chapter 29

  1.  The leading study is Catherine Allgor, Parlor Politics: In Which the Ladies of Washington Help Build a City and a Government (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2000), though we need not be quite so impressed with Mrs. Madison’s political significance as Allgor. For example, “[w]e may wonder if it occurred to Dolley and James Madison, as they wandered through echoing rooms, that the condition of the President’s House might be a fitting metaphor for the political situation Jefferson had bequeathed to them.” Allgor, Parlor Politics, 48–9. Also consider “both Madisons … entered the executive mansion in 1809 and then guided the nation through war.” Allgor, Parlor Politics, 52. Allgor also heads a section of her Dolley Madison chapter “Last of the Founders,” thus both alluding to the title of the foremost Madison book and putting Dolley Madison in the company of George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and her husband. Allgor, Parlor Politics, 94; Drew McCoy, The Last of the Fathers: James Madison & the Republican Legacy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989).

  2.  Allgor, Parlor Politics, 63.

  3.  Ibid., 71, 255, n. 57, 62.

  4.  William W. Freehling, The Road to Disunion, Volume 1: Secessionists at Bay, 1776–1854 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 167–68.

  5.  Allgor, Parlor Politics, 95.

  6.  Ibid., 72.

  7.  Ibid., 76.

  8.  Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson & Sally Hemings: An American Controversy (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1997), 197; Appendix B, 245–48, at 247.

  9.  Catherine Allgor, Dolley Madison: The Problem of National Unity (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2013), 99.

  10.  Ibid.

  11.  Elizabeth Dowling Taylor, A Slave in the White House: Paul Jennings and the Madisons (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 226.

  12.  Paul Jennings, “A Colored Man’s Reminiscences of James Madison,” in Taylor, A Slave in the White House, Appendix A, 229–36, at 235, 236.

  13.  Ralph Ketcham, James Madison: A Biography (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1990), 477.

  14.  Irving Brant, James Madison: The President, 1809–1812, (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1956), 38–39.

  15.  JM to William Pinkney, March 17, 1809, The Papers of James Madison: Presidential Series, ed. Robert A. Rutland, et al. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1984–), 1:55–57.

  16.  An excellent account of New England’s role in American foreign policy at this time is Richard Buel Jr., America on the Brink: How the Political Struggle Over the War of 1812 Almost Destroyed the Young Republic (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).

  17.  The following description relies upon Editorial Note, “Presidential Proclamation Restoring Commerce with Great Britain, 15–19 April 1809,” PJMPS, 1:117–18.

  18.  Albert Gallatin to JM, April 14, 1809, PJMPS, 1:118.

  19.  JM, Presidential Proclamation, April 19, 1809, PJMPS, 1:125–26.

  20.  Ibid., 1:137, n. 1.

  21.  JM to the Mother Superior of the Ursuline Convent, April 24, 1809, PJMPS, 1:136; JM to TJ, April 24, 1809, PJMPS, 1:135–36.

  22.  TJ to JM, April 27, 1809, PJMPS, 1:139–40.

  23.  Ibid., 1:202, n. 1.

  24.  JM to Congress, May 23, 1809, PJMPS, 1:199–202.

  25.  JM to TJ, May 30, 1809, PJMPS, 1:213–14, at 214.

  Chapter 30

  1.  Madison had received indication that something was odd a few days before. JM to TJ, June 12, 1809, The Papers of James Madison: Presidential Series, ed. Robert A. Rutland, et al. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1984–), 1:239–40. For the bombshell’s arrival on June 19, JM to TJ, June 20, 1809, PJMPS, 1:261–62, and n. 1.

  2.  Ibid., 1:308, n. 1.

  3.  William Eustis to JM, July 27, 1809, PJMPS, 1:308.

  4.  JM to Albert Gallatin, July 28, 1809, PJMPS, 1:309–10.

  5.  Irving Brant, James Madison: The President, 1809–1812 (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1956), 44.

  6.  Erskine indicated to Gallatin that Madison’s statement about George’s honor had in fact been the basis of British refusal of Erskine’s agreement. Albert Gallatin to JM, July 31, 1809, PJMPS, 1:313–14, at 314.

  7.  JM to Albert Gallatin, July 28, 1809, PJMPS, 1:309–10, at 310.

  8.  JM, Presidential Proclamation, August 9, 1809, PJMPS, 1:320–21.

  9.  Ibid., 1:374, n. 2.

  10.  JM to Robert Smith, September 15, 1809, PJMPS, 1:378.

  11.  Ralph Ketcham, James Madison: A Biography (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1990), 496.

  12.  JM to Albert Gallatin, October 5, 1809, PJMPS, 2:3 and n. 1; JM to TJ, October 6, 1809, PJMPS, 2:5.

  13.  Caesar A. Rodney to JM, October 17, 1809, PJMPS, 2:17–18, at 18.

  14.  Smith to Francis James Jackson, summary note, PJMPS, 2:11.

  15.  Ketcham, James Madison, 496–97. Ketcham, sometimes relying on Henry Adams, credits Madison with the letters to Jackson. The editors of the authoritative edition of Madison’s papers, however, are uncertain how completely letters in Smith’s handwriting should be credited to Madison. Editorial Note, “Madison, Francis James Jackson, and Robert Smith, 9 October-11 November 1809,” PJMPS, 2:8–11.

  16.  Draft of Robert Smith to William Pinkney, ca. November 9, 1809, PJMPS, 2:65–7, and n. 1.

  17.  Garry Wills, James Madison (New York: Times Books, 2002), 86–87.

  18.  JM to Congress, January 3, 1810, PJMPS, 2:158 and n. 2.

  19.  Wills, James Madison, 87.

  20.  JM to TJ, May 25, 1810, PJMPS, 2:353–54, at 353.

  22.  Armstrong to Robert Smith, August 5, 1810, PJMPS, 2:463, n. 1.

  23.  Paul Hamilton to JM, September 25, 1810, PJMPS, 2:554, and n. 1. A letter from a friend in Paris confirming the French news soon followed. Lafayette to JM, September 26, 1810, PJMPS, 2:559–60, at 560.

  24.  JM, Presidential Proclamation, November 2, 1810, PJMPS, 2:612–13.

  25.  JM to William Pinkney, October 30, 1810, PJMPS, 2:603–05.

  26.  Robert Allen Rutland, The Presidency of James Madison (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1990), 64–67.

  27.  For Francophilia, Henry Adams, History of the United States of America During the Administrations of James Madison (New York: Library of America, 1986), 42.

  28.  Good general accounts are Ketcham, James Madison, 500–02; and Brant, James Madison, 173–89. Also see Editorial Note, Madison and the Collapse of the Spanish-American Empire: The West Florida Crisis of 1810, April 20, 1810, PJMPS, 2:305–20.

  29.  JM, Presidential Proclamation, October 27, 1810, PJMPS, 2:595–96.

  30.  This instruction took the form of an interlineation in Smith’s instructions to Claiborne in Madison’s hand. PJMPS, 2:596, n. 4.