A Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation – Hardcover
Publisher: Macmillan, April 4, 2006.
Edition: First
Book Condition: New
Jacket Condition: New
Binding: Hardcover
ISBN: 0805073272 / 9780805073270
An extraordinary American comes to life in this vivid, groundbreaking portrait of the early days of the republic--and the birth of modern politics
When the roar of the Revolution had finally died down, a new generation of American politicians was summoned to the Potomac to assemble the nation's newly minted capital. Into that unsteady atmosphere, which would soon enough erupt into another conflict with Britain in 1812, Dolley Madison arrived, alongside her husband, James. Within a few years, she had mastered both the social and political intricacies of the city, and by her death in 1849, was the most celebrated person in Washington. And yet, to most Americans, she's best known for saving a portrait from the burning White House, or as the namesake for a line of ice cream.
Why did her contemporaries give so much adulation to a lady so little known today? In A Perfect Union, Catherine Allgor reveals that while Dolley's gender prevented her from openly playing politics, those very constraints of womanhood allowed her to construct an American democratic ruling style and to achieve her husband's political goals. And the way she did so — by emphasizing cooperation over coercion, building bridges instead of bunkers — has left us with not only an important story about our past but also a model for modern politics.
Introducing a major new American historian, A Perfect Union is both an illuminating portrait of an unsung founder of our democracy and a vivid account of a little-explored time in our history.
Editorial Reviews
From The New Yorker
Once she married the much older James Madison in 1794, Dolley Madison became a celebrity of the founding generation, popular but polarizing. Her enemies circulated rumors that Thomas Jefferson had sold her sexual services, and they attacked her as "Queen Dolley" for her aristocratic pretensions. But Allgor's sympathetic biography argues that, as the architect of Washington's social scene, Dolley gave the new republic the forum it needed to develop an indigenous political culture. If Allgor occasionally overreaches Dolley's drawing room, she says, "changed the course of the republican experiment," she captures Dolley's charisma and her essential role in the politics of her time. Charles Pinckney, the loser in the 1808 election, was, he wrote, "beaten by Mr. and Mrs. Madison." He added, "I might have had a better chance had I faced Mr. Madison alone."
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker
From Booklist
*Starred Review* During the administration of President James Madison, his wife was the "most famous and loved" individual in the country; upon her death in old age, having achieved the status of icon, she was accorded a state funeral in the nation's capital. When her husband served as secretary of state under Thomas Jefferson, and then especially while she occupied the White House during Madison's two presidential terms, Dolley put her beauty, charm, and intelligence to good use: as a practitioner of salon politics, she played a beneficial role as a bridge between the political and social arenas at a time when "Washington City" was still an unformed and unfinished capital carved from the wilderness and its social atmosphere was in its infancy. History professor Allgor's serious biography of a woman who was "never one to fade into the background in any situation"--this at a time when it was commonly believed that a woman should do just that--stresses the importance of Dolley's making the office of First Lady her own, setting a pattern for future strong and individualistic First Ladies, a list that came to include Eleanor Roosevelt, Jacqueline Kennedy, and Hillary Clinton. A sensitively perceived and historiographically important biography. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"Where is Dolley Madison when we need her? Catherine Allgor makes clear that Mrs. Madison's skills as a hostess and politician held the country together when rabid partisanship threatened to tear it apart. This is a well-told biography of a true nineteenth-century celebrity, but a celebrity with substance, savvy, and courage." -
--Cokie Roberts, author of Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation
"For some time, Dolley Madison has been a beguiling ornament, flashing her femininity in the parlors of the early American republic. Here, at last, Catherine Allgor, with great style and wit, recovers a different Dolley, a full-fledged political partner with James Madison. Now, in addition to John and Abigail,
we have James and Dolley."
--Joseph J. Ellis, author of His Excellency: George Washington
"A lively, clear-eyed account of a master politician. As the first 'President's,' Dolley Madison established herself as one of our earliest female celebrities and left an enduring mark on American culture. Hers is a rousing tale of ambition, gossip, and policy, told with empathy and understanding by Catherine Allgor. "--Stacy Schiff, author of A Great Improvisation
"Before Jackie Kennedy, there was Dolley Madison - elegant, sophisticated, and charismatic. Thanks to her inimitable style and determination, the nation's capital became more than just a swampy outpost where pigs and politicians freely roamed. In A Perfect Union, Catherine Allgor reveals the warm and fascinating woman who dazzled Americans for more than three decades."
--Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire
From the Back Cover
"Where is Dolley Madison when we need her? Catherine Allgor makes clear that Mrs. Madison's skills as a hostess and politician held the country together when rabid partisanship threatened to tear it apart. This is a well-told biography of a true nineteenth-century celebrity, but a celebrity with substance, savvy, and courage." - Cokie Roberts, author of Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation
"For some time, Dolley Madison has been a beguiling ornament, flashing her femininity in the parlors of the early American republic. Here, at last, Catherine Allgor, with great style and wit, recovers a different Dolley, a full-fledged political partner with James Madison. Now, in addition to John and Abigail, we have James and Dolley." Joseph J. Ellis, author of His Excellency: George Washington
"A lively, clear-eyed account of a master politician. As the first Presidentess, Dolley Madison established herself as one of our earliest female celebrities and left an enduring mark on American culture. Hers is a rousing tale of ambition, gossip, and policy, told with empathy and understanding by Catherine Allgor. " Stacy Schiff, author of A Great Improvisation
"Before Jackie Kennedy, there was Dolley Madison - elegant, sophisticated, and charismatic. Thanks to her inimitable style and determination, the nation's capital became more than just a swampy outpost where pigs and politicians freely roamed. In A Perfect Union, Catherine Allgor reveals the warm and fascinating woman who dazzled Americans for more than three decades." Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire
About the Author
A professor of history at the University of California-Riverside, Catherine Allgor has received the George Washington Egleston Prize from Yale, the Lerner-Scott Prize from the Organization of American Historians, and the James H. Broussard First Book Prize from the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic for Parlor Politics. She was awarded a Bunting Fellowship for her work on Dolley Madison. Allgor lives in Riverside, California.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Prologue
On Wednesday, August 24, 1814, Dolley Madison stood at the window of the White House and watched thousands of Washingtonians, rich and poor, white and black, pouring down Pennsylvania Avenue. News and rumors of the approach of British troops had thrown the city into confusion, and the population had been evacuating for days. Vehicles were at a premium, and any conveyance with wheels was pressed into service by the fleeing throngs. It had not rained for three weeks, and the clouds of dust raised by the people, horses, carriages, and carts lingered ominously on the horizon.1
With chaos at her door, Dolley sat down at her desk to continue a letter to her sister Lucy, which she had begun the previous day. “My husband left me yesterday morning to join General Winder,” Dolley had written on Tuesday. “He enquired anxiously whether I had courage, or firmness to remain in the President’s house until his return, on the morrow, or succeeding day, and on my assurance that I had no fear but for him and the success of our army, he left me, beseeching me to take care of myself, and of the cabinet papers, public and private.”2 James had gone to review the troops stationed in nearby Maryland, hoping to discern, if he could, the intentions of a small force of British soldiers who had landed on the banks of the Patuxent River in June. He had sent Dolley two messages, framing the confusion as comfort: “The reports as to the enemy have varied every hour. The last & probably truest information is that they are not very strong, and are without cavilry and artillery, and of course that they are not in a condition to strike at Washington.” But, James had to admit, “it is possible, however they may have a greater force or expect one, than has been represented or that their timerity may be greater than their strength.” His second letter was “alarming,” Dolley admitted, “because he desires I should be ready at a moment’s warning to enter my carriage and leave the city.”3
By midday on Wednesday, Dolley had packed, “press[ing] as many cabinet papers into trunks as to fill one carriage; our private property must be sacrificed,” but she was also determined to wait for her husband. From time to time, she went onto the roof of the executive mansion, anxiously casting her spyglass in every direction. By this point, 90 percent of the populace had fled, even the men guarding the city. The mayor of Washington, James H. Blake, came twice to plead with her to evacuate, but Dolley would not leave until James returned.
This disastrous state of affairs—the capital city under threat and the president in physical jeopardy—had taken Americans by surprise. Though there certainly had been signs that the British were targeting Washington, the country had, for the most part, denied the danger. As recently as early August, Dolley had assured her own son that “the British on our shore are stealing & destroying private property, rarely coming to battle but when they do, are always beaten,” yet the truth was far less rosy. Over the course of the two-year war with Great Britain, victories on the American side had been few, and the losses significant and frustrating. American troops had repeatedly tried to invade Canada, across the Niagara frontier, from Lake Champlain toward Montreal, and from Detroit into Upper Canada. Though American forces had won two decisive battles in 1813—led by Oliver Hazard Perry at the battle of Lake Erie, and under William Henry Harrison’s command at the battle of the Thames—Canada remained under British control. And despite several widely heralded victories by the American ships Constitution and United States, the powerful British navy blockaded the east coast, leaving coastal towns from the Penobscot River in Maine to the Chesapeake Bay vulnerable to hit-and-run raids. Now the papers and commanders could deny it no longer: the British had landed at Benedict, Maryland, and were heading, four thousand men strong, for the capital of the United States.
Dolley feared not only marauding British soldiers but also nearer enemies. “Mr. Madison’s War,” as his detractors dubbed it, had divided the country, inflaming an already combustible political climate. Treachery filled the air, and on the eve of invasion, Dolley had American foes in mind when she darkly hinted to her sister: “Disaffection stalks around us.” Indeed, she wanted to leave the city with James as much for his safety as her own: “I hear of much hostility towards him.”
Even as she was deciding whether to wait for the president, Dolley was overseeing preparations for that day’s dinner party, supervising the table setting for forty guests, and ordering the wines, ale, and cider to be brought from the cellar. This occasion was one of many she had hosted in the past months, designed to reassure government officials and local gentry alike that all was well.6 By three o’clock, however, she received word of a devastating rout near Bladensburg, Maryland, during which the Americans turned tail and ran so quickly that the episode would come to be known as the Bladensburg Races.
Now “within sound of the cannon,” Dolley “lived a lifetime,” waiting for her husband to return, but “Mr. Madison comes not; may God protect him!” She was in an “agony” of fear that the British would take James prisoner. Urged on by friends, she organized herself and her slaves to leave the house. Charles Carroll, a wealthy Maryland landowner and Madison supporter, “has come to hasten my departure, and is in a very bad humor with me because I insist on waiting until the large picture of Gen. Washington is secured.” The full-length portrait of the beloved Washington hung in the presidential portrait gallery in the state dining room. Unfortunately, there was no time to unscrew the frame from the wall. “I have ordered the frame to be broken, and the canvas taken out,” Dolley related to Lucy, “it is done.” She entrusted the precious painting to “two gentlemen of New York” for safe passage.7
Dolley’s departure could not be much longer delayed. James Smith, a free black man who had accompanied the president to Bladensburg, came galloping down the street, warning Dolley and the remaining capital residents to flee, as the American forces were in retreat. Clearly, James would not come now; if Dolley lingered any longer, she risked capture as a political prisoner or death as a casualty of war. It was time to end her missive. “And now, dear sister, I must leave this house, or the retreating army will make me a prisoner in it, by filling up the road I am directed to take. When I shall again write you, or where I shall be tomorrow, I cannot tell!!”
That day the British did indeed invade Washington City. They looted and burned only the public buildings, taking particular relish in consigning the “president’s palace” to the flames. Before they did so, however, they sat down and enjoyed the elegant meal that had been set out.8 Given the effort Dolley Madison had put into establishing her White House as the capital’s social and political center, it seems fitting that a dinner party, even one attended by uninvited guests, occupied the last moments of the executive mansion.
This is how most Americans know Dolley Madison, as the heroine who saved the portrait of George Washington. In fact, next to the tale of Fort McHenry and the writing of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the story of Dolley and the White House is the only one Americans typically associate with the ill-fated War of 1812. To be sure, very few have the story right—for instance, many believe Dolley saved the Declaration of Independence. This is not true, though she did save crucial government documents. One version of the legend holds that Dolley herself cut the portrait out of its frame with a butcher knife; some later illustrations even depict Dolley fleeing the burning White House, the canvas flapping behind her as she runs through the street.
The truth is more sobering, more complicated, and more interesting. Black hands tried to unscrew the picture, and when that failed, enslaved Americans wrestled the “Father of Liberty” out of his frame. The portrait, a copy of the famous Gilbert Stuart painting, was not even particularly valuable. But this event is remembered as pivotal for precisely the reason that Dolley intended. She knew the picture was only a copy; nonetheless, she insisted, “Save that picture! Save that picture, if possible; if not possible, destroy it.”9 She recognized that it would have been disastrous for any image of the venerated Washington to fall into British hands, to be burned with the house, or even worse, to be paraded through London streets as a prize of war. Dolley understood how fragile the country’s sense of identity was. Even her famous letter to her sister stands as a testament to her political savvy: produced decades later, she may well have edited or sharpened the text to present a more overtly patriotic account.10
However, Dolley Madison’s fame is not restricted to this single incident—nor to the packaged pastries and ice cream that bear her (misspelled) name—and did not take hold years after her death. In an age before the modern cult of celebrity, when people nonetheless lionized the living, Dolley Madison was famous. During her tenure as the president’s wife and for decades after, she was one of the best-known people in the United States. Travelers, diplomats, private citizens, and government officials alike raved about her charismatic charm and gracious presence, her legendary parties, and her impressive wardrobe. Even the occasional criticism centered on the excess of these qualities—she was too charming, too regal, too popular. In a time when no r...
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