Democracy: An American Novel

Set in post-Civil War Washington, D.C., the novel follows Madeleine Lightfoot Lee, a wealthy thirty-year-old widow from New York, as she attempts to understand American democracy and finds herself entangled in political corruption and a dangerous courtship.

Five years after losing her husband and baby, Madeleine has exhausted every available pursuit, from German philosophy to philanthropy, and grown contemptuous of New York high society. She resolves to spend the winter in Washington to witness the machinery of government firsthand. What she truly wants, the narrative reveals, is power, though whether she seeks the abstract force of government or the men who wield it remains unclear, even to her.

Madeleine settles into a house on Lafayette Square with her younger sister, Sybil Ross, who is her opposite: transparent, devout, socially graceful, and uninterested in politics. Their household becomes a fashionable salon. Among the regular visitors is John Carrington, a Washington lawyer and distant connection of Madeleine's late husband. A Virginian who served reluctantly as a Confederate officer, Carrington has spent the postwar years supporting his impoverished family. Madeleine trusts him instinctively. Carrington takes her to the Senate to hear Senator Silas P. Ratcliffe of Illinois, known as "the Prairie Giant of Peonia," a formidable political manager who narrowly missed the presidential nomination. At a dinner hosted by her distant cousin, Senator Schuyler Clinton of New York, Madeleine flatters Ratcliffe with calculated skill. Ratcliffe, a widower of fifty, is thoroughly charmed and asks to call on her. Madeleine regards him as the key to understanding American politics, but the narrator warns that Ratcliffe is fully her match.

The salon also attracts Baron Jacobi, the elderly Bulgarian minister and witty cynic; Nathan Gore, a Massachusetts historian angling for a diplomatic post; Hartbeest Schneidekoupon, a wealthy Philadelphia protectionist who courts Sybil; and Victoria Dare, a mischievous young woman. At a dinner Schneidekoupon organizes, Ratcliffe transforms into a magnetic storyteller, moving guests to tears with an account of Lincoln's deathbed and demolishing a young congressman's case for civil service reform. Only Carrington watches with cold hostility.

Ratcliffe begins visiting every Sunday evening, growing confidential about his maneuvering against the incoming President. He tells Madeleine frankly that he loves power and means to be President. She attends a White House reception and is horrified by the mechanical spectacle of the President and his wife shaking hands with an endless line of citizens. Washington gossip links her name to Ratcliffe's, and Carrington, silently in love with Madeleine, watches with alarm. Jacobi wages a campaign to expose Ratcliffe's cultural ignorance, tricking him into confusing the playwright Molière with the philosopher Voltaire.

A group excursion to Mount Vernon sharpens tensions. Carrington draws Ratcliffe into revealing his views on George Washington's legacy. Ratcliffe dismisses Washington as overrated and declares that "if virtue won't answer our purpose, we must use vice." Madeleine watches Mount Vernon recede and wonders why everything Washington touched seemed purified while everything her companions touch seems soiled. Ratcliffe notices Carrington speaking with Mrs. Sam Baker, whose late husband was a well-known lobbyist, and the sight sets his mind working.

Back in Washington, Ratcliffe secretly contacts Wilson Keen, chief of the Secret Service Bureau, to learn whether Carrington, as executor of Baker's will, possesses papers that could compromise Ratcliffe regarding past financial dealings with the lobbyist. The new President, a plain Indiana farmer known as "Old Granite," arrives intending to neutralize Ratcliffe by trapping him in a hostile Cabinet. In a pivotal meeting, the President offers Ratcliffe the Treasury Department; Ratcliffe declines at first, forcing the President to urge him to accept. Ratcliffe also appeals to Madeleine for guidance. Moved by his apparent sincerity, she advises him to do "whatever is most for the public good." He accepts and tells her he will hold her to her "responsibility."

Ratcliffe quickly dominates the new administration, controlling appointments and patronage. Gore departs Washington, bitterly disappointed, and warns Madeleine she is wasting time on Ratcliffe. When Keen reports that Baker's compromising papers have been destroyed, Ratcliffe moves to neutralize Carrington, offering him a Treasury appointment through Madeleine and then arranging to send him to Mexico for six months as counsel to a claims commission.

During a horseback ride to Arlington Cemetery, Carrington and Sybil form a secret alliance. Sybil confides her fear that Madeleine will marry Ratcliffe, and they agree that Carrington will leave a sealed letter as a last resort. Carrington declares his love to Madeleine, who insists her heart is burned out, and warns her against Ratcliffe, calling him "a coarse, selfish, unprincipled politician." Madeleine refuses to flee Washington. Before leaving for Mexico, Carrington entrusts the letter to Sybil.

After his departure, Madeleine suspects Sybil has fallen in love with Carrington. Confronted, Sybil insists he loves only Madeleine. Stricken with guilt, Madeleine begins to believe that accepting Ratcliffe may redirect Carrington's affections toward her sister.

The arrival of European royalty occasions a grand ball at the British Legation, the British government's diplomatic residence in Washington. Madeleine is trapped beside a princess all evening while Sybil dances radiantly. Ratcliffe finds Madeleine alone and proposes, appealing not to romantic love but to her ambition and sense of duty. Victoria Dare alerts Sybil, who interrupts, and Madeleine escapes.

At home, Sybil asks whether Madeleine intends to accept. After a painful struggle, Madeleine says yes, driven less by love than by a confused sense of duty, a desire to secure Sybil's happiness with Carrington, and unacknowledged ambition. Sybil begs her to reconsider, but Madeleine holds firm. Seeing her pleas have failed, Sybil produces Carrington's sealed letter.

The letter reveals that Ratcliffe accepted a hundred-thousand-dollar bribe from a steamship company to secure passage of a subsidy bill in the Senate. Carrington discovered the evidence as executor of Baker's will but acknowledges the papers are destroyed and the charge can never be proved publicly. Madeleine's fury at Ratcliffe turns inward: She realizes her supposed self-sacrifice masked ambition and a longing to escape the emptiness of her life. The worst discovery is "the discovery of her own weakness and self-deception" (180). She tells Sybil the marriage will not happen.

The following afternoon, Madeleine refuses Ratcliffe and hands him the letter. He defends himself: The money went to the National Committee, not to him personally, and he acted under party discipline when the Union was at stake. He reminds her that she never objected when he previously confided that he had once rigged an election by manipulating vote returns. This reproach strikes home. Ratcliffe presses harder, even offering to leave politics, but when he reaches for her hand, Madeleine recoils and delivers her final verdict: "Mr. Ratcliffe, I am not to be bought" (195). She orders him never to speak to her again.

Ratcliffe storms out and encounters Jacobi, who offers mocking congratulations. Ratcliffe shoves the old man aside; Jacobi strikes him across the face with his cane. Ratcliffe walks away. Inside, Sybil finds Madeleine on her couch, pale but peaceful.

Madeleine asks Sybil to go abroad, declaring that democracy has "shaken my nerves to pieces." An epilogue in the form of Sybil's letter to Carrington reports their plans to sail for Europe. Sybil secretly encloses a note: "If I were in your place I would try again after she comes home." Madeleine adds a postscript: "The bitterest part of all this horrid story is that nine out of ten of our countrymen would say I had made a mistake" (200).