Who is Madison?

           The American people could not possibly have known who their former president Madison really was as a person because of the complete fake public image he worked to portray, especially during the years following his presidency.

The former president would not get to relax as much as he thought because of the constant struggle he would have to maintain to keep well in the eyes of the world. Madison did not escape the public eyes like he thought he would have as demonstrated by Wulf when she states, “..Madison also quickly discovered that, like the other founding fathers, he would have to deal with a constant stream of visitors” (Wulf, 194). This stream of visitors would be never ending there for the privacy that most people experience within their homes did not exist for Madison as he would always be on display.

Madison living on the massive property and having been president renders a stereotype of being well off in the era he lived but Wulf explains otherwise as she states Madison’s later confession, “…Madison would later admit that he had lived the first years of his retirement ‘on borrowed means’” (Wulf, 203).

                  In other words Madison upon retiring was going to have to fake his true life of uncertainty most likelty dealing with debts by borrowing money in secret. Instead of being comfortable enough to living a simple life he felt the need to live up to the status of the previous presidents and their retirement status. He defiantly refused to be a truthful man in his financial actions proven by Wulf when she states, “Madison continued his garden improvements and at the beginning of his retirement hired a second gardener,” (Wulf, 196). The fact that he hired a second gardener at the exact time he was borrowing money speaks volumes to his insecurity in admitting his struggles that just as many other Virginians were dealing with at that time. He even became the first president of a group called Agricultural Society of Albemarle that was also resilient in their efforts to admit troubles. Wulf explains, “Though on first sight this might seem like a parochial endeavor, it was as much a political act as an agricultural one because the goal was to stop Virginia’s economic downfall” (Wulf, 203).

                  Another image that that Madison displayed dealt with the slave issue and his insecurity of looking bad to the public. Wulf explains, “The rationale behind hiding the busy kitchen from the eyes of visitors while purposefully placing the neat slave cottages in full view lies in the changing attitudes to slavery and the social changes in Virginia” (Wulf, 198). Wulf points out the fact that the cottages that were seen directly from the house were not built for the benefit of slaves because they were now on display twenty four hours a day and the majority of the slaves did not live in the villages but instead in cabins that resembled the usual terrible conditions of slave living quarters. They were also tucked away from the house beyond the boundaries of the landscape garden next to the 3,000 acre plantation fields. (Wulf, 201). Madison put forth an incredible amount effort to maintain an image of himself to the public that just simply wasn’t true. The American people during that time would have had no way of knowing who their former president truly was as a person.