James Madison's Montpelier We The People Spring 2017 Montpelier_WTP_Spring2017_FINAL-1-web | Page 19

SPRING 2017
How do you see the story of slavery and the story of American
Exceptionalism in the Founding Era coexisting side by side?
Rights, which Madison essentially drafted. I think you
have to recognize that someone who did these things
deserves enormous credit and to the extent that you
can think more about it at Montpelier, that’s a good
thing for scholars and students and all Americans.
When you’re visiting Montpelier, you’re not only
seeing the home of the man who basically devised the
Constitution, you’re also visiting a place where you
can study the Constitution and I think that’s a helpful
thing for society.
It’s one of the great mysteries of modern times
how people who were as brilliant and talented as
Madison, Jefferson, and Washington could live
in a society where they created such wonderful
products as the Declaration of Independence or
the U.S. Constitution, yet they tolerated slavery.
They were not lovers of slavery, they recognized its
challenges, but they did tolerate it. Maybe no one
I think people who visit Montpelier recognize that
could have done anything else in their positions.
you have an opportunity to go back in time and
But I do think when you’re talking about the
extraordinary things that go into what we now have see what a home of one of the Founding Fathers
looked like and now, with the reconstruction, what
come to call American exceptionalism, and they are
the slave quarters looked like. But you also have the
extraordinary, I think you have to recognize that
chance to study the Constitution and participate in
it began side-by-side with slavery. One wonders
Constitutional seminars and research and I think it’s
what would have been the history of our country if
wonderful what The Montpelier Foundation has done
we had not had slavery. Would we be much farther
advanced than we are today? I presume we would be, and I’m pleased to be involved in a modest way.
but you never know. I just like for
How does history help us understand the
people to learn the good and the
…when you realize what an
present and the future? What is the value
bad and I think when you realize
extraordinary
country
and
what
its
of history in a democratic society?
what an extraordinary country
achievements
are
you
have
to
put
and what its achievements are you
It has been said many times that
have to put it in the context of the it in the context of the fact that at
fact that at one point before the
one point before the Civil War, there if you don’t learn history you have
a pretty good chance of repeating
Civil War, there were four million
were
four
million
enslaved
people.
the mistakes that have been made
enslaved people.
your predecessors. The theory of
learning history is that you can see what people did
Why do you believe Montpelier is an important site and what
right and wrong when they were confronted with
do you hope the American public takes away from a visit?
similar challenges and you can learn how to improve
yourself as a society. It’