James Madison - A Life Reconsidered

by Lynne Cheney

reviewed April 2018

After finishing this book, I was a bit puzzled by the portion of the title “A Life Reconsidered”. This book was a straight up biography. What is there to reconsider? Does this book paint any new, jarring revelations about the man? Are there things that history has taught us that the author wants to disprove? If so, I never figured it out. Although I confess I didn’t know that much about James Madison other than he was one of the country’s founding fathers, the fourth President of the United States, and the author of the Constitution.

This book tells you all of this, but not that much more. To be honest, that’s o.k. I wasn’t necessarily looking for a 1,000-page tome on someone who lived over 200 years ago. In fact, this book seemed to go by rather quickly. We don’t really read much about his personal life. There are brief mentions of parents, siblings, and friends, but other than wife Dolley, this book is much more about facts and not so much about feeling. Even the famous Dolley doesn’t get that much attention paid to her. We also read a lot about Madison’s struggle with epilepsy and the primitive ‘cures’ that never seem to do much good.

So in many ways this biography is more of a history lesson of the times that Madison lived through than a deep dive into himself as a person. There certainly was a lot of history to be written about so, again, one doesn’t feel as though they’re not getting their fill within the pages. To be honest, I thought the first half of the book dragged somewhat. The minutia of the formation of the young country was a bit much. One must remember how challenging such a task was. How should this new country be run? Who decides such things? Obviously, there’s never any clear consensus, and even before the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the colonies found themselves split mainly within two ways of thinking. Actually, I do enjoy reading about the conflicts between the Federalists and the Republicans. It proves that conflicts between two political parties has never been anything new. People who think the nation is now severely divided need to read accounts such as this. Sadly, it’s always been politics first, the well-being of the nation second.

Once the Revolutionary War concludes and George Washington is elected the first president, the book picks up the pace. Author Lynne Cheney wisely doesn’t spend much time on Madison’s three predecessors in the White House (then called the ‘Executive Mansion’). Each president gets about one chapter each. In fact, when Madison is elected in 1808, there isn’t that much detail either. The one event that gets considerable detailed telling is the War of 1812 – the highlight being the burning of the Executive Mansion.

There were times when I forgot that I was reading a bio of James Madison and thought, instead, that I was reading a history book on the beginnings of the United States of America. Perhaps there really isn’t that much to know about Madison? I seem to recall at one point that there were letters written to him, or by him that were purposefully destroyed for some reason or another. Such a thing doesn’t seem such a big deal today, but back then, such correspondence was invaluable into the understanding of the people and the times, so it could be that the author tells us just about all there is to know – it just didn’t feel like very much. This is especially true when one has read books by Ron Chernow on such subjects as Washington, Hamilton, and Ulysses S. Grant.

I still enjoyed the book. The second half was definitely stronger. One who loves history really shouldn’t be disappointed, and the author, for the most part, stays away from over bearing her readers with unnecessary details and facts that the layman may not prefer to study in meticulous detail.

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