. I'd like to think Jefferson and I are looking into the future to see our amazing experiment in democratic government come true. Notice "Jefferson's" red water bottle by his foot. It was nice of the tour guide to lend him some water.
Posted by JENNIFER MITNICK at 6/29/2010 10:30:00 PM
Today was another fascinating day at Montpelier! In the morning we heard a lecture by Will Harris about Madison's thinking and his reasons for designing the Constitution in the way that he did. He also showed us a way of examining the Declaration of Independence. Professor Harris developed a theory which explains that the Declaration of Independence has a "symmetrical" structure. Picture a diagram of 7 rectangles -- like a bar graph. The outside two are the tallest. Then moving inward, each gets shorter until the shortest one is in the middle. Hence, the most important parts of the Declaration of Independence are the beginning and the end. The beginning unanimously gives us the name "The united States of America" and the end lists the signers' names. Then, moving inward from each end, you have the "theory of Constitution-making" (Locke's social contract theory) and the end proclaims us as "free and independent states." The next parts going inward on either side are the "He has...He has...He has..." parts. Then the middle is the "For...For...For" part. This was a very unique way of teaching the Declaration of Independence!
One part of the lecture I found interesting was when Professor Harris explained how Thomas Jefferson's house was also symmetrical, except that it was tall in the middle and short on the ends. The Declaration of Independence goes down in the middle -- hence, it's not a very good "house." In other words, it presents a very negative picture of government and lists all of the injustices the colonies have suffered under the British government. I thought this was a clever analogy.
After lunch, we had a walking tour of archaeology at Montpelier. The tour was led by Mark A. Trickett, Field Director of James Madison's Montpelier. He took us around the property and showed us all the various locations where they had done excavations. Archaeology is very much like detective work. For example, in the pictures of Madison's house, you'll notice the curved fence in the front yard. The archaeologists had to figure out where the "post holes" had been -- where the white posts for each section of the fence had been placed. Architectural design at the time of James Madison recommended that such fences be placed the same distance in front of the house as is the width from front to back of the house. So the archaeologists measured out this distance and sure enough, they located the holes. How did they know these were the correct "post holes" 200 years later? Apparently, Madison had had his workmen "char" or burn the bottom ends of the fence posts. This would protect the wood from insects and decay. So the archaeologists found within the soil the remnants of this burned wood. Every seven feet, they dug a new excavation area and again found more charred wood remnants on the soil. When they finally inserted the new posts, they moved them 2 feet back so the original holes would not be disturbed.
One very interesting point that the Field Director explained was that they discovered the outlines of slave quarters behind the house. They had difficulty finding a lot of archaeological evidence about the slave quarters, so, for the time being, they marked off the rectangular buildings by putting a chemical on the grass to kill the grass. Hence, the dead grass formed the outline. From 2002-2009, they had restored Montpelier's mansion to the way it looked when James Madison was alive. They spent $25 million doing this restoration. One day, the Dead of Archaeology was showing descendants of Madison's slaves around the newly restored house and grounds. One of the descendants then said to the Director of Archaeology, "You spent 25 million dollars restoring James Madison's house, and you're marking the houses of my ancestors with dead grass?" This was like a pu