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The so-called Virginia Dynasty of 1801 to 1825-the successive presidencies of Thomas Jefferson,James Madison, and James Monroe-is generally portrayed as the period of America's republicanization. In 1819, a decade into retirement when he was thinking about his role in history, Jefferson described his election as the "revolution of 1800." He had, by the time of Monroe's first term, succeeded in popularizing his most hard-fought neologization, blurring the boundaries of meaning between two versions of one word: republican, which for a generation had described the simple dignity Revolutionary Americans prized in contrasting themselves with the vice-ridden effete of Europe, and Republican, the political party Jefferson long symbolized, which contrasted its liberal humanist values with those of privilege-seeking Federalists-in Jefferson's parlance, "Anglomen" and "monocrats." To the extent that Jefferson's legacy was already clear-that Monroe was able to assume office in 1817, with the demise of the Federalist party a foregone conclusion-the progression of Republican presidents offers us a picture of consistency. This picture, however, hides the complex and unusual personal dynamic of the Jefferson-Madison-Monroe triangle.
Jefferson met Madison in Williamsburg in the autumn of 1776, when they were ages thirty-three and twenty-five, respectively. On Jefferson's return from Philadelphia, bolstered by the efforts of his mentor, legal scholar and legislator George Wythe, the author of the Declaration of Independence became a vigorous advocate for legal reform in the Virginia Assembly. Although at this time they cooperated in promoting a statute for religious freedom, Jefferson and Madison did not become close until three years later, when, as Virginia's newly elected governor, Jefferson worked routinely with his executive council, which included Madison.
The younger man served, in historian Merrill Peterson's words, as a "faithful lieutenant," deferring to Jefferson's greater legislative experience. Even in this early period, though, Madison never assumed as dependent a relationship as Monroe, whose life changed when he met Governor Jefferson in 1780 as a twenty-two-year-old war veteran with financial worries.Jefferson took Monroe under his wing and provided him with his start in public life. General George Washington had called the youth, wounded at the Battle of Trenton, a "brave, active, and sensible officer. As the governor tutored Monroe in the law during 1780 to 1781, boyish first-term Congressman Madison apprised Jefferson of news from Philadelphia. Although...