The personal aspects of James Madison

I'm Walter Isaacson to the aspen institute and i'm here with lynne cheney author of james madison a life reconsidered and now we're going to talk about the personal aspects of James Madison tell me about his background he's from a Virginia planter family right he is and I think we have a more exalted view of that than the reality they lived modestly they had slaves they live better than most people in Orange County Virginia but it was not grand by any means Jefferson's life Washington's life both of those are much grander Madison also had a certain reticence and you know he dressed very plainly he was unadorned in his speech where did that come from is that a character trait you know I think character traits are usually emphasized by learning and he read The Spectator as a boy wonderful collection of essays that emphasized the importance of modesty and that also emphasized the political uses of modesty we don't think of it that way too much anymore but Madison instantly understood that you don't want to stand up and make pronouncements before the situation is completely unfolded many a politician today stumbles over that still and he understood that it was the ideas that were important rather than the credit you know we hear people say it's not important who gets the credit it's important what gets done but Madison really reflected that you know Franklin read the spectators well the essays by Addison and steel and he said of the humility and reticence he said I was never very good at the virtue of humility but I was good at the pretense of it and I knew how useful it was to have the pretense of humility so that's what out Addison and steel have this sort of humorous quality in the spectator it was fun that both Madison and Franklin read it you also say he had a real focus and an obsessive effort and what he did I mean he was not sort of happy-go-lucky you know the Virginians had a reputation for indolence that neither Jefferson or Madison betrayed at all Madison especially he worked all the time and he worked at learning and once his interest became building government that's what he studied when Jefferson was in Paris he asked him to send books on the subject you know show me how constitutions have worked in other times there's a book that came out recently called the outlier that emphasizes how much you have to practice to become a champion and medicine I think practiced more than any of the founders at becoming a great leader one of the things I learned from your book that was absolutely fascinating he treated very very sensitively was his worried about his epilepsy tell me about that he wrote in an unfinished manuscript at the end of his political career that he had suffered throughout his life with sudden attacks somewhat resembling epilepsy and suspending the intellectual functions I've talked two neurologists and it seems likely he suffered from a mild form of epilepsy today we'd call it complex partial seizures which you know you sort of depart for a while and then come back he had probably his first attack as an adult at Princeton it was traumatic deeply traumatic it took him several years to overcome it but he did and he learned to deal with his epilepsy he learned to recognize when an attack was imminent so that he could absent himself from the public stage it gives me greater admiration for him even then I had before to understand how he overcame the disability it represented in his time it was thought to be the result of demonic possession do you think it helped shape his character oh absolutely it made him tougher than he would have been otherwise it also gave him an appreciation for intellectual freedom I think he wouldn't have had otherwise because he had to live with this stereotype that epilepsy was the product of sin and he knew it wasn't true and it made him determined that nobody should have to believe things they knew weren't true did that lead into his great defense for the freedom of religion absolutely I mean I'm convinced there's a connection he and Jefferson both saw religious freedom and intellectual freedom on a spectrum and when Madison managed to get through the Virginia statute for religious freedom that Jefferson had authored he wrote to Jefferson we have defeated forever the idea that one can impose intellectual servitude on another and that helps when it comes time to write the bill of rights and that First Amendment yes but the Bill of Rights is interesting because Madison didn't think it was necessary he thought that the Constitution hadn't given away any of those rights on the part of the people but when it came time to write them yes indeed what later became the first amendment was important to him and he defended the Baptist to him that's what he first has his sense of religious freedom exactly the Baptist were being persecuted jailed soldiers would ride among crowds listening to a sermon and not people over and beat the slaves who are listening and Madison was appalled he didn't like Baptist too much he thought they were too emotional but that didn't matter they have a right to do what they're doing and he defended it futile II in the short term but ultimately high successfully on there was a word tolerance that was often used he went beyond that tell me about that well when the idea of the Virginia Declaration of Rights was being debated the notion was that the state would be tolerant of all religions and Madison saw that as a kind of intellectual insult nobody has the right to grant tolerance no one has the authority to tolerate what you or I think you and I have the fundamental right to think what seems right to us so he took that word out and it became described as a fundamental right on the part of each of us to be able to think and believe as we choose another example of why he's helped shape the nation as it is today thank you very much we'll be back with another lesson after this