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a boardinghouse. There is nothing in her past to account for her combination of good taste and impeccable hospitality.
    Dolley herself was no beauty. She was forty by the time she became First Lady and was definitely into middle-age spread. She applied rouge and other cosmetics of the day with a heavy hand. But her radiance overcame any and all physical deficiencies. One White House guest left a pen portrait of her in her hostessing prime. She was dressed “in a robe of pink satin, trimmed elaborately with ermine, a white velvet and satin turban with nodding ostrich plumes and a crescent in front, gold chains and clasps around the waist and wrists.” The entranced visitor insisted it was “the woman who adorns the dress and not the dress that beautifies the woman.”
    Dolley had a genius for making every guest feel special. She never forgot a name or a connection. Moreover, she hired the best chef in Washington, and she mingled writers and artists with the usual guest list of politicians and diplomats. But it was Dolley’s totally unassuming style that set the tone of the White House. She was nothing if not down-to-earth. Once, chatting with the soon-to-be famous congressman Henry Clay, Dolley offered him some snuff. She was addicted to this form of nicotine and never went anywhere without her snuffbox. While Clay inhaled and sneezed, Dolley whipped out a red-checked handkerchief. “This is for rough work,” she said, and snorted into it. Next came a fine lace handkerchief. “And this,” she went on, “is my polisher.” She applied this to her nose in more dainty fashion.
    With marvelous astuteness, Dolley managed to work both sides of the aristocracy versus democracy debate. At her receptions, some people liked the way she insisted that each lady guest curtsy to the President before taking a seat. Others admired the way she mingled “the Minister from Russia and the under clerks of the post office.”
    “Politics,” Dolley once told her sister, “is the business of men. I don’t care what offices they hold, or who supports them. I care only about
people?
” Few lines are a better summary of one of the fundamental parameters of the First Lady’s role. Every First Lady who haslost touch with this principle—or was perceived to have lost touch with it—has gotten into trouble. I should add, however, that Dolley was intensely interested in politics, and she frequently asked her husband for the latest developments on the international and national scenes.

    Without Dolley Madison, James Madison would probably have been a one-term president. Here is a portrait of her in her hostessing prime .
(American Heritage Library)
    There is another dimension to Dolley which in turn leads us to a wider view of First Ladies. The uncommon courage she displayed in the White House rescued Madison’s presidency—and even the country—from the debacle of an unpopular war. In 1811, westerners and southerners in Congress coalesced into something called “the War Hawks,” who breathed sulfur and flame on the English for their highhanded insistence on boarding and sometimes seizing American ships to enforce their blockade against Napoleon’s France. Dolley, a shrewd observer of human nature, undoubtedly warned Madison that the War Hawks’ real motive was the hope of getting rich from captured real estate in British-owned Canada. But the President reluctantlysigned a declaration of war on June 19, 1812, even though it passed the Senate by only seven votes.
    The country, already divided, turned savagely on Madison and his First Lady when the American attempt to invade Canada ended in a rout and an invading British army captured Detroit. The President was called “the little man in the palace.” Others spelled
white house
in lowercase letters to indicate their contempt for its occupant. Dolley was assailed with accusations of supposed infidelity.
    Although Dolley valiantly tried to fill the White House with her usual good cheer,