father's farm. This respect stayed with Madison his entire life. His personal servant, Paul Jennings, related years after Madison's death that,[Mr. Madison] often told the story, that one day riding home from court with old Tom Barbour (father of Governor [James] Barbour), they met a colored man who took off his hat. Mr. M. raised his, to the surprise of old Tom; to whom Mr. M. replied, "I never allow a negro to excel me in politeness."3When Madison wrote home to his father he would often ask about "the family." To Madison "the family" included the family slaves.The first direct reference to slavery in Madison's writings is in a letter written to Joseph Jones. Jones wrote Madison asking his opinion of offering a slave as a bonus to those who enlisted to fight in the war for independence. Madison responded by offering another solution to the lack of manpower by saying,I am glad to find the legislature persist in their resolution to recruit their line of the army for the war, though without deciding on the expediency of the mode under their consideration, would it not be as well to liberate and make soldiers at once of the blacks themselves as to make them instruments for enlisting white Soldiers? It wd. certainly be more consonant to the principles of liberty which ought never to be loss sight of in a contest for liberty.4On one of Madison's frequent trips to Philadelphia his slave Billey became too taken with the principles of the Declaration of Independence, in Madison's opinion, to be a fit companion for his fellow slaves in Virginia. In a letter to his father Madison wrote,I . . . cannot think of punishing him by transportation merely for coveting that liberty for which we have paid the price of so much blood, and have proclaimed so often to be the right & worthy the pursuit, of every human being.5Whatever arrangements Madison made for Billey, they could not have lasted for more than seven years according to Pennsylvania law. The arr...
