A Perfect Union

No union is ever perfect. Yet it’s not a stretch to consider Dolley Madison the perfect First Lady, “a bridge between presidential dignity and democratic accessibility.” As Allgor (History/Univ. of California, Riverside) details, Dolley and James Madison certainly enjoyed an uncommonly good partnership, perhaps against the odds. He was 43 and she 25 when they married, he retiring, she fond of the social swirl; James—Allgor puts himself on a first-name basis with the founding couple—“resided most comfortably in the theoretical realm, happiest when composing or untangling complex political…