Is slavery the most important element in the biography of James Madison, the father of the Constitution?
I suppose that the non-profit organizations which run historic sites like Montpellier and Monticello can put up whatever exhibits they want to and promote whatever political or revisionist historical theories they favor. But whoever wrote the material that appears on the Montpellier website and, presumably, on-site as well, is pushing a political purity agenda that judges and condemns our founding fathers based on some 21st century notions of political correctness.
The question is not what James Madison would have done or should have done had he possessed a 21st century political sensibility.
The question is: What did this 18th century man of letters, law, and politics accomplish in the America of his time? And what did he bequeath to us that we still value today?
America’s founding fathers are revered in the U.S. not because they were perfect, and not because they stood up for women’s rights or gay rights or children’s rights or an end to slavery, which, for the most part, they did not. They are revered because they stood up for the independence of the 13 colonies from the British. They created the United States of America, which was then – and remains today – a massive achievement in human history. Would the 13 colonies have formed a single nation if an end to slavery had been a prerequisite for entry into the union? I sincerely doubt it.
Opposition to slavery existed in the 18th century, in North America as well as in Europe. We, in the 21st century, are free to sing the praises of 18th century abolitionists and to condemn 18th century slaveholders such as Jefferson and Madison. But these nation-builders had a practical as well as a moral mission facing them: how to hold the 13 colonies together, in spite of the differences between North and South regarding slavery. A Britannica article I just read cited "the Founders’ commitment to subordinating the controversial issue of slavery to the larger goal of securing the unity and independence of the United States."
https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Founding-Fathers-and-Slavery-1269536
In 2022, many, if not most, people would probably place the abolition of slavery as a higher value than national independence. But that appears not to have been the case with most of America's revolutionary leaders. And most of the revolutionary leaders who opposed slavery were willing to postpone its elimination until well after the United States had been established as a new nation.
With regards to Mount Vernon, Monticello, and Montpellier, (all of which I have visited), I believe that what draws so many tourists to visit them is NOT the fact that Washington, Jefferson, and Madison were slaveholders, but rather the fact that all three of them played essential roles in the creation of the United States.
If those three sites' claim to fame was solely as former plantations, worked by enslaved men, women, and children, then probably far fewer people would visit them. And if the focus of the tours in those locations has now shifted away from the life and thought of Washington, Jefferson, and Madison -- and their lives certainly were influenced and affected by the institution of slavery -- to a new focus on the living and working conditions of those enslaved on the plantations -- then something has probably been gained, but something else may have been lost -- the uniqueness of Washington, Jefferson, and Madison.
And those three were indeed unique individuals of great national stature.