I liked the opening of the story where we are introduced to Paul Jennings who was born as a slave on the future President James Madison's plantation. There was a striking contrast drawn between the slave, Paul whose family had been at Montpelier for the third and fourth generation and the son of James and Dolley Madison, Payne. Paul was ten years old when Payne was a toddler when Madison was the Secretary of the State. Of course their lives were vastly different in what they experienced, what they wore, where they slept and particurly how they were treated. Payne was seemed spoiled and given everything he wanted and that did not come out alright in the future. Paul thrived intellectually and morally despite many deprivations.


What I didn't like about this book was the tremendous amount of details about Dolley. I wished that I could push aside all the details on her entertaining and concentrate on the relationship between James Madison and Paul Jennings. Dolley deserves to be in this book of course because she was famous then and still is now but I felt there was a little too much of her. I started to get tired of reading about her but I stuck it out, and I was felt that I learned quite a bite later on in this book. Paul Jennings' character stood out and his desire to get ahead, learn, learn, learn and later to help his children as much as he could.

President James Madison's views on human freedom pushed against what he had learned from his father and grandfather. There seemed to be some torment in his conflicting ideas. With Dolley, it seemed simpler, slaves are possessions and that is it. I kept wondering what would have happened if he had not married Dolley, if he had married someone who saw the evils of slavery clearly and spoke against it.

The author, Elizabeth Doling Taylor fills the book with details about slavery especially in the Washington D.C area and Montpelier. After the coverage of Dolley's tremendous amount of entertaining, the book regained its life and provides a mirrot to the past.

The book could not have been written if Paul Jennings had not written his "A Colored Man's Reminiscences of James Madison. I came away from the book with a load of admiration and respect for Paul Jennings. He took chances, he showed forgiveness and he had a great deal of foresight.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in United States History and the tragedy of slavery with the recommendation to keep reading when passing through the Dolley passages.

I received this book as a part of the Amazon Vine Program but that in no way influenced my review.