Ace’s weak Constitution
I agree with both your answer man Ace and his correspondent Pynt Syze that the Jefferson, Madison and Monroe images dangling from City Hall’s facade fall short not only historically but aesthetically [“Stretching it,” Ask Ace, December 21]. I’ve always thought they looked less like men “facing the gallows” than a trio of already executed highwaymen left hanging to warn us all—hence their “bleak expressions.”
However, the image Ace conjured of TJ and JM “signing the Constitution side by side in Philly” fails its own fact test. Thomas Jefferson signed the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia in 1776. James Madison wasn’t there. James Madison signed the U.S. Constitution in Philadelphia in 1787. Thomas Jefferson wasn’t there.
As for James Monroe, though only a teenager in ’76, he’d already joined the Continental Army in which he would conduct himself with noted courage. Then, in 1787, having already been elected to Virginia’s Governing Council and the Congress of the Confederation—though still only in his 20s—he served as a delegate to the Virginia Convention called at Richmond to ratify the Constitution.
Antoinette W. Roades
Charlottesville
The Editor replies: Ms. Roades is correct. And while I could detail the several misstatements that contributed to Ace’s historical confusion about who signed which document in Philadelphia and when, suffice to say that Ace accepts responsibility for the error and will serve time, Colonial-style, in the C-VILLE stockades.