Autographs
“James Madison” Signed Historic Black History Related “AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY” Certificate
JAMES MADISON (1751 - 1836). Fourth President of the United States (1809–1817), hailed as the “Father of the Constitution” for being instrumental in the Drafting of the United States Constitution and as the Key Champion and Author of the United States Bill of Rights. He served as a Politician much of his adult life. A Virginia Statesmen and President of the Slave “Colonization Society,” he was a Slaveholder at his inherited plantation known as Montpelier, and owned Hundreds of Slaves during his lifetime to cultivate tobacco and other crops.
Extremely Rare and Important, Partially-Printed Document, Signed “James Madison,” at Washington (DC), 1 page, measuring 7” x 10.25” no date, Engraved Certificate by “Henry Stone” printed text at bottom center, the sun's rays shine from clouds, across which is the bold legend "Office of the Colonization Society," Choice Extremely Fine. The Society's circular emblem is engraved in a central oval at bottom center (a Ship Sailing towards Liberia, with Latin motto, "Lex in Tenebris" which translates as, “Light amid Darkness.” The emblem is flanked by sheaves of banana and palm leaves. Madison signs in ink at lower right. According to the Library of Congress, selling Life Memberships was a standard fundraising practice. In 1825, at Thirty Dollars per Membership Certificate, not less than Fifty Thousand Dollars was raised in this way.

An uncommon blank Membership Certificate, Signed in advance by the Society's President, “James Madison,” conferring a Life Membership in the controversial American Colonization Society (officially known as the American Society for Colonizing the Free People of Color of the United States). Also endorsed by “R R Guiley, Secretary” at bottom left. The Society's mission was to remove free blacks from the United States and relocate them to the African Colony of Liberia. Madison, along with Bushrod Washington, James Monroe, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Andrew Jackson and Francis Scott Key all were among the luminaries who lent their names to this enterprise. The highly animating idea and theory behind it, that Whites and Free Blacks could never live together in peace, long predated the Society's creation in 1816. Thomas Jefferson actually urged the removal of Blacks when he wrote his, “Notes on the State of Virginia” in 1782, stating, in part: "Deep-rooted prejudices entertained by the Whites; ten thousand recollections, by the Blacks, of the injuries they have sustained... will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions, which will probably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race." "THE TWO RACES CANNOT COEXIST" (James Madison).

Jefferson's disciple in this concept, as in so many other things, James Madison also believed that "the two races cannot coexist, both being free and equal. The great sina qua non, therefore, is some external asylum for the coloured race" (Ketchum, James Madison, page 628). With a $100,000 bequest from Congress, the first boat load of settlers arrived in 1822. Most fell victim to diseases within months of their arrival. Only about 2,600 Blacks made the journey over the next decade. No more than 15,000 did so over the entire life of the Society. Most of the members were Slave owners from the upper South, like Madison and Clay. Jefferson realized that colonization would never work. "We cannot get rid of them this way," he said. Yet this strange idea persisted. Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Grant would briefly toy with colonization schemes during their own presidencies.

Only in 1964 did America finally reject the idea of separatism in favor of full legal equality. For it was in that year that Congress passed and Lyndon Johnson signed into law landmark civil rights legislation; and the American Society for Colonizing the Free People of Color of the United States finally dissolved its charter. Signed Membership Certificates from the American Colonization Society are rare. Only about four have appeared at auction in the last 30 years.
Though Madison did contemplate emancipating his slaves, he never did. Madison felt that slaves could not be freed unless "...they are permanently removed beyond the region occupied by, or allotted to a white population." He supported the American Colonization Society's efforts to return freed blacks to Africa, after indemnifying the slave owners. Madison served a term as President of the American Colonization Society, and upon his death left $2,000 in trust to the Society, along with the proceeds from the sale of his grist mill.

An incident that illuminates James Madison's ambivalence toward the issue of slavery is the story of Billey, a body servant who accompanied him to Philadelphia during the Continental Congress. Madison wrote to his father at Montpelier:

"On a view of all circumstances I have judged it most prudent not to force Billey back to Va. even if it could be done; and have accordingly taken measures for his final separation from me. I am persuaded his mind is too thoroughly tainted to be a fit companion for fellow slave in Virga. The laws here do not admit of his being sold for more than 7 years. I do not expect to get near the worth of him; but 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, and worthy pursuit, of every human being."

— James Madison, Jr., to James Madison, Sr., 8 September 1783

His solution was to sell Billey to a Quaker, knowing that, by Pennsylvania law, Billey could only remain a slave for seven years and then would be freed. Billey was indeed freed, adopted the last name Gardner, and in his occupation as a merchant's agent, was lost at sea a few years later.

Some slaves risked all, because the idea of freedom was so dear. Despite rigid laws, slave catchers seeking rewards exacted severe punishment to runaway slaves. Many failed to reach their goal; others found freedom after several escape attempts.

Slaves cared for Madison while he was sick and Paul Jennings was at his side when he died. Despite these ties and his own reservations about slavery, Madison did not manumit his slaves in his will as did George Washington. This left the fate of black Montpelier in the hands of Dolley and her son John Payne Todd. This tragic dismantling of Montpelier, both in physical and human terms, culminated in its sale in 1844.