A leading Founding Father, James Madison was a member of the Second Continental Congress, an architect of the U.S. Constitution, a close ally of Thomas Jefferson in the formation of the Democratic-Republican Party, a secretary of state, and U.S. president during the War of 1812 (1812-15). He was born into a prominent Virginia family and in 1762 began his education under the tutelage of the Presbyterian minister Donald Robertson of King and Queen County, Virginia. After five years with Robertson, he returned to his family home at Montpelier, where he studied for the next two years with the Reverend Thomas Martin. In 1769 he attended the College of New Jersey (present-day Princeton University), where he studied under the Reverend John Witherspoon, a prominent classical scholar and staunch Whig. Madison graduated in autumn 1771 but remained in Princeton to read law under Witherspoon's direction.

By spring 1772, Madison later remembered, he was "under very early and strong impressions in favor of liberty both civil and religious." In the years prior to the Revolutionary War (1775-83), when provincial committees of safety formed to prepare for war with Great Britain, Madison and his father joined the local Orange County organization; in 1774, when Baptists were imprisoned in the neighboring county of Culpepper, Madison denounced the suppression of their freedom.

Two years later, Orange County elected Madison to the Virginia convention in Williamsburg, where he supported Virginia's formal declaration of independence. Soon thereafter, he became a member of the committee to prepare a declaration of rights and plan of government. In committee, Madison suggested the disestablishment of the state church, and although this proved too progressive, the legislature did adopt his amendment entitling "all men" the right to "free exercise of religion." In October 1776 he first met Thomas Jefferson, who, having recently returned from the Second Continental Congress, was anxious to contribute to the formation of Virginia's new government. They served together on several committees, including the committee on religion; the "great collaboration" of Madison and Jefferson, however, was yet to begin.

Madison, who did not win reelection as a legislative delegate, soon returned to Williamsburg as a member of Virginia's Executive Council and served under Governors Patrick Henry and Jefferson. In 1779 he became a delegate to the Continental Congress, and in March 1780 he left Virginia for Philadelphia. When he arrived, the nation was still awaiting unanimous state ratification of the Articles of Confederation. Madison helped to persuade large states to cede their western lands, thus opening the way for states like Maryland to ratify the Articles. The western territories, Maryland argued, were the common property of the Confederation, and the federal government should control the proceeds of public sale of the land.

Another major difficulty for the Congress was financing the war: Since Congress did not possess the power to impose taxes, it remained dependent on the states. In 1781 the legislature established federal departments of finance, war, and foreign affairs. Robert Morris headed finance and undertook to set up an efficient method of supplying the troops, while several members of Congress, including Madison, sought additional French aid to rescue the southern states from British occupation. At the close of Madison's first year in Congress, he began to recognize the value of a more powerful government, and he subsequently turned his attention to the problem of national finance. Working to help Congress in the transition to a peacetime government, he lobbied for an amendment to the Articles of Confederation authorizing a 5 percent duty on imports that would generate the revenue necessary to operate government and repay accumulated wartime debts, but this amendment failed to pass.

Madison left Congress in November 1783, having served four years. Already an authority on federal affairs, he now studied the problems of ancient confederacies. He returned to represent Orange County in the Virginia House of Delegates in April 1784, and in June he persuaded the legislature to appoint a commission to negotiate Virginia's right to navigate the Potomac River. After the commission successfully completed its task, Representative John Taylor of Caroline suggested, with Madison's urging, that delegates from the various states convene to consider a uniform system of commercial regulations. In January 1786 Virginia sent out a national request for delegates to meet in Annapolis in September. Although only five states sent representatives, the Annapolis Convention (1786) recommended that another meeting occur in Philadelphia in order "to render the Constitution of the federal government adequate to the exigencies of the Union."

In the meantime, Madison pursued religious liberty in Virginia, shepherding through the state legislature Jefferson's "Act for Establishing Religious Freedom," which secured, as the preamble states, "that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions." Jefferson cheered "the first legislature who had the courage to declare, that the reason of man may be trusted with the formation of his own opinions." The Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom would be a precursor of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

In April 1787 Madison wrote an essay entitled "Vices of the Political System of the United States," in which he forcefully argued for a stronger national government. Madison outlined 11 "vices" that included not only the states' failure to comply with Congress's requisitions for taxes but also encroachments on federal authority and trespasses by the states on the rights of other states. Perhaps the most vicious "vices" in Madison's mind, however, concerned the "multiplicity" and "mutability" of state laws. Madison complained that there was a "luxuriancy of legislation" and that the "short period of independency has filled as many pages" of new laws "as the century which preceded it." Compounding this problem was the fact that "We daily see laws repealed or superseded, before any trial can have been made of their merits: and even before a knowledge of them can have reached the remoter districts within which they were to operate." This "instability becomes a snare" complicating business and trade. From Madison's perspective, "the multiplicity and mutability of laws prove a want of wisdom" that could only be corrected by a more stable government on the national level in which "the purist and noblest characters" would govern.

That summer, Madison headed for Pennsylvania to attend the Constitutional Convention. In Philadelphia, the delegates decided not to revise or amend the Articles of Confederation but to draft a new Constitution, voting on May 30 that "a national Government ought to be established." Madison declared, "We are laying the foundation of a great empire." Although the deliberations were kept secret, Madison took notes of the convention's transactions, which were published posthumously and provide the only full record of the proceedings.

For four months the delegates deliberated on the nature of a sound republic. Madison recognized that the new central government must possess the power necessary to operate efficiently, and Edmund Randolph proposed Madison's Virginia Plan, which recommended an entirely new form of government with an executive, judiciary, and a bicameral legislature. The plan included proportional representation in the bicameral legislature, which representatives from the larger states supported; smaller states, however, backed New Jersey's plan for equal representation. Roger Sherman's "Connecticut Compromise" finally decided the issue: States would have representation based on population in the House of Representatives, while in the Senate they would be represented equally. Yet, who would be represented? Madison said that it would be "wrong to admit the idea that there could be property in men." Southerners wished to count slaves when determining representation in the House, a proposition that some northerners considered an outrage. The "Great Compromise" was the settlement reached: Slaves would count as three-fifths of a person. Madison referred to slavery as a "blot" or a "stain" and worried that this compromise might later jeopardize the Constitution. Nevertheless, on September 17, 1787, the final document was signed.

In Article VII the Constitution's framers imparted the power of ratification to the individual states' conventions. Madison called this procedure "the highest source of authority." A fervent advocate of the Constitution, he believed that its success or failure "would decide forever the fate of republican government." But it was a complex and innovative document that did not excite unqualified approval. Supporters of the Constitution called themselves Federalists, while opponents were Anti-Federalists. Before returning to Virginia, Madison worked with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay to produce 77 essays, written under the pseudonym "Publius," to explain and defend the new system against the Anti-Federalists' charges. Along with the publication of the Federalist Papers, he led the campaign for the Constitution's ratification.

In 1788, running against James Monroe and promising that, if elected, he would work to add a Bill of Rights to the Constitution, Madison won a seat in the House of Representatives. He wanted the first Congress to provide "additional guards in favour of liberty." "I should be unwilling to see a door opened for a re-consideration of the whole structure of the government," he wrote, "but I do wish to see a door opened to consider, so far as to incorporate those provisions for the security of rights." In Congress on June 8, 1789, he proposed the adoption of a Bill of Rights. Altogether a dozen amendments were proposed, of which 10 were ratified.

While framing the Constitution, Madison worked in harmony with George Washington and Hamilton. Political discord, however, arose under the new federal government. When Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton advanced a series of controversial proposals in 1791, Madison led the resistance. For Washington and Hamilton, their former collaborator's opposition was a shocking blow both personally and politically. Siding with Secretary of State Jefferson, Madison viewed Hamilton's plan as a threat to liberty and one that went beyond those authorized in the Constitution. By rallying opposition against Hamilton, Madison and Jefferson--the acknowledged leaders of the movement--began to organize a factional alliance that they described as Democratic-Republican.

Jefferson resigned from Washington's administration in 1793, leaving Madison as the leader of the loosely organized Democratic-Republicans. Partisan strife heated up during the political campaign of 1796, which resulted in the election of John Adams of the Federalist Party as president; Jefferson was elected vice president. In 1797, after Congress adjourned, Madison, having declined reelection, left Philadelphia for Montpelier.

He did not return to Montpelier alone. In the 1780s, Madison had fallen in love with Catherine "Kitty" Floyd, and although she had accepted his proposal, within months she broke off the engagement. In 1794 Madison was more fortunate when he had his friend Aaron Burr introduce him to Dolley Payne Todd, a beautiful and vivacious widow. The couple married that September, and Dolley Madison would earn enduring fame as a Washington hostess for both Jefferson and her husband.

Madison's retirement from politics proved brief. In opposition to Adam's Alien and Sedition Acts (1798), Madison drafted the Virginia Resolutions; Jefferson wrote similar resolves for Kentucky's legislature. The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions (1798) questioned the federal government's right to exercise powers not delegated to it by the Constitution and helped to establish the states' rights theory of government.

After Jefferson became president in 1801, he named Madison his secretary of state, and the Madisons moved to Washington, D.C., where they would live for the next 16 years. For the duration of Jefferson's presidency (1801-09), Madison served not only as secretary of state but as the president's most trusted adviser. In the election of 1808, Madison won 122 of 173 possible electoral votes, and on Saturday, March 4, 1809, he was inaugurated the fourth president of the United States.

At Madison's inaugural ball, departing President Jefferson was asked why he seemed so happy and Madison so serious and sad. His reply was: "I have the burthen off my shoulders, while he has now got it on his." Madison inherited a crisis: France and Great Britain were seizing U.S. merchant vessels, and the British were impressing U.S. seamen into naval service. Efforts to use trade to force Britain to respect the United States failed. Impotent to protect the nation's ships and men, and with the war hawks in Congress pressing for a fight, the president asked Congress to declare war against Great Britain on June 1, 1812.

After the declaration of war, Madison easily won reelection. However, he was not a dynamic war leader, and for two and a half years, the United States effectively stumbled through the War of 1812 with a military that was, with few exceptions, badly led, underfinanced, and poorly trained. In summer 1814, the president watched as one of his officers, commanding twice the number of troops as the opponent, fled almost without firing a shot. The British then marched into Washington, where they burned a number of buildings--including the executive mansion. When Madison returned to Washington, however, he received news of the British defeat at the Battle of Baltimore (September 12-14, 1814).

On Christmas Eve 1814, the War of 1812 ended in a stalemate with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent (1814). Despite the conflict's pathetic prosecution and the fact that the peace agreement addressed none of the outstanding issues that had provoked it, Madison proclaimed victory when he sent the treaty to Congress. Denying reality, he congratulated the country "upon an event which is highly honorable to the nation" that "terminates with peculiar felicity a campaign signalized by the most brilliant of successes." He praised "the wisdom of the Legislative Councils," even though they had seldom raised enough money to support the war. The president extolled "the patriotism of the people," despite the fact that many had traded with the enemy and that the Federalist Party had flirted with secession. He highlighted "the public spirit of the militia," regardless of their often refusing to leave their own states and an abysmal military record, and he lauded the "valor of the military and naval forces"--ignoring the burning of Washington and the fact that by the end of the war, hardly a naval ship could get to sea because of the British blockade.

For much of the rest of his administration, Madison sought to build on the rising nationalism evident at the end of the war and redress the nation's shortcomings. Thus, he signed into law a bill that created the Second Bank of the United States to stabilize national finances, but he vetoed the Bonus Bill, which would have used money paid by the Second Bank of the United States for internal improvements.

In 1817, after James Monroe assumed the presidency, Madison retired to Montpelier. Together with Jefferson and Monroe, he worked to establish the University of Virginia (1819) and served as its second rector (1826-36) after Jefferson's death. "Having outlived so many of my contemporaries," he said, "I ought not to forget that I may be thought to have outlived myself." The last of the country's "founders" died at the age of 85 on June 28, 1836, and was buried in the family cemetery at Montpelier. Dolley Madison inherited his papers, most particularly his notes from the Constitutional Convention, which she published as Madison directed. While she received most of the proceeds, Madison earmarked some of the funds for various causes, particularly education. He also bequeathed $2,000 to the American Colonization Society. A lifetime slave owner, Madison held an unyielding commitment to abolishing slavery in the United States, although he made no provision in his will for his nearly 100 slaves. On August 12, 1844, Dolley Madison sold the Montpelier estate, including its enslaved workforce.

In 1834, two years before his death, Madison wrote "Advice to My Country," which was to be read only when "I am no more." He wrote that "the advice nearest to my heart and deepest in my convictions is that the Union of the States be cherished and perpetuated," and he professed an "inexhaustible faith that a well-founded commonwealth might be immortal." Today James Madison is remembered as the "Father of the Constitution."

Bibliography:

1)         Ralph Ketcham, James Madison: A Biography (New York: Macmillan, 1971)

2)         Drew R. McCoy, The Last of the Fathers: James Madison and the Republican Legacy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989)

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