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Mary-Kate Carpenter, 9, a student at Madison County Elementary School, holds onto her placard showing a star.
More than 2,600 schoolchildren form the Presentation
Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts Jr. listens to Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine speak yesterday.
Re-enactors portraying James and Dolley Madison wave to a large crowd during the restoration celebration at Montpelier. |
By CLINT SCHEMMER
James and Dolley Madison would have loved it. Especially Dolley, ever the lively and gracious hostess.
Constitution Day became a festive occasion yesterday as several thousand appreciative guests turned out at Montpelier to honor the Madisons and celebrate the restoration of their Orange County home.
Appearing once again as President Madison and his wife knew it, Montpelier made its formal debut after a painstaking, five-year, $24 million makeover.
Now, the restorers believe, the red-brick mansion can take its place with Monticello and Mount Vernon--the homes of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington--among the architectural gems where America's founders can be better understood by the public.
U.S. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who attended with Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., lauded the restoration. But Roberts said the most fitting memorial to Madison is what he helped create: a "free country governed by the rule of the law."
PBS broadcaster Jim Lehrer, while just as respectful of Madison's achievements as architect of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, took a less solemn view.
"A pundit once commented, many years ago, that 'Madison's great genius is that he invented a government that could be run by idiots,' No offense intended," said Lehrer, getting a laugh from the VIPs and politicians assembled beneath the home's Palladian-style front portico.
Lehrer stressed that all Americans, including those in the big crowd that spilled down Montpelier's front lawn, owe their rights to the work of Madison and his colleagues, who signed the Constitution 221 years ago to the day.
Lehrer thanked the Montpelier Foundation, the site's steward, "for giving us a place where James Madison can finally be found."
'MADISON IS BACK'
Richard Moe, president of the foundation's parent, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, recalled the daunting challenges faced when the trust acquired the 2,650-acre property in 1984 from equestrian Marion duPont Scott's estate.
Scott's industrialist father, William, built enormous, salmon-colored additions to the Madison-era home that obscured the president's residence and confused visitors interested in the lives of the fourth chief executive and his wife, who was chief hostess at the White House for Jefferson, a widower, and then her husband.
Many experts doubted the home could be restored, but an exhaustive study revealed that its structure was largely intact, hidden beneath the duPont re-do.
The ensuing restoration, begun in 2003, is one of the nation's largest and most complex for a historic building. Funded mainly by $20 million from the estate of banking heir Paul Mellon, the effort removed whole wings added by the duPonts, shrinking the structure from 36,000 square feet to 12,261.
Craftsmen rebuilt the front porch and rear colonnade, replaced the tin roof with hand-cut cypress shingles and finished dozens of other projects.
Now, the brick Georgian home in view of the Blue Ridge appears as it did between 1809, when Madison was elected president, and 1836, the year he died.
"In my line of work, it doesn't get any better than this," Moe happily declared of the result. " The pink stucco is gone, and James Madison is back."
'UNLIKELIEST OF HEROES'
Today, Moe said, Montpelier is ready to tell its many stories--of the birth of a new nation, of the Civil War, of a millionaire and horse jockeys, and of "an absolutely indispensable Founding Father."
U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor, R-7th District, recalled being awestruck at visiting Montpelier's second-floor library, where Madison crafted his "Virginia Plan" for the Constitution, which called for a bicameral legislature and representation based on states' population.
Cantor, who serves the House district once represented by Madison, noted that the Virginian, who stood 5-foot-4, was shy, chronically ill, a poor orator and lacked the charisma of his friend and neighbor Jefferson.
"And yet, this unlikeliest of heroes stepped up to save a foundering nation," Cantor said. "He took the faltering project under his wing and did all he could to make sure it succeeded."
Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine praised Madison's willingness to change his mind, as he did on the need for a Bill of Rights, and to compromise to achieve larger goals. "In the words of today, James Madison was a 'flip-flopper,'" he said.
The celebration concluded with two patriotic flourishes.
Madison Iler Wing, a seventh-generation descendant of Madison's sister, Sarah, and Raleigh Marshall, a descendant of Madison's personal slave, took turns reading the Constitution's pre- amble--which starts with the words "We the people."
Then, 2,600 Virginia schoolchildren held up colored panels to create a giant, living American flag--circa 1812--on the lawn as a red, white and blue helicopter hovered overhead to photograph their handiwork.
montpelier.org preservationnation.org
Clint Schemmer: 540/368-5029
Email: cschemmer@freelancestar.com
