James Madison was raised on a plantation within view of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia,
He was a sickly child who never left his mother's side. His father, James Madison Sr.,
acquired wealth by inheritance and by his marriage to Nelly Conway who was the daughter
of a rich tobacco merchant. James Madison's childhood memories included his fears of Indian attacks during the
French and Indian War (1754-1763). Madison suffered
from psychosomatic, or stress-induced, seizures, similar to epileptic fits,
that plagued him on and off throughout his youth.
Young James devoured books and studied the classical languages. By the time he entered the College,
Madison had mastered Greek and Latin under the direction of private tutors. He completed his college
studies in two years but stayed on at Princeton for another term to tackle Hebrew and philosophy.
In 1772 Madison studied law at home but had no passion for it.
In 1774 he took a seat on a local patriot prorevolution
group that oversaw the local militia.
Within two years, the colonies were on the brink of war
with England, and young Madison found himself caught up in the debates over independence. In 1776,
he became a delegate to the revolutionary Virginia Convention and would later push through statutes
on religious freedom, among other measures, that he had worked on with Thomas Jefferson.
Though defeated in a general election, he won appointment in 1778 to the Virginia Council of State,
a powerful
government body that directed state affairs during the Revolutionary War. In that capacity,
Madison developed his relationship with Thomas Jefferson, who served as governor of Virginia during
the war years. From then until Jefferson died in 1826, Madison was Jefferson's
closest adviser and personal friend.
At twenty-nine, Madison became the youngest member of the Continental Congress. Within a year,
the young Madison had emerged as a respected leader of the body. It was a tribute
to his hard work and understanding of the issues. No one ever went to a meeting more prepared than
Madison. For three years, he argued vigorously for legislation to strengthen the loose confederacy
of former colonies. Madison believed that military victory required vesting power in a central government.
His appeals were beaten down by delegates who were afraid the emergence of
a monarchical authority after the war. Along with Jefferson, the young Virginian persuaded his
home state to cede its western lands, which extended to the Mississippi River, to the Continental
Congress.
When Madison returned to the Virginia House of Delegates in 1784, he battled Patrick Henry's attempts
to tax citizens in support of the Christian religion. Henry, though a strong supporter of
independence, nevertheless believed in state support of religion. Among the proposed laws that
fell victim to Madison's relentless pressure were those designed to establish religious tests
for public office and to criminalize heresy.
Madison persuaded the states' rights advocate John Taylor
to call for a meeting in Annapolis, Maryland, to address problems of commerce among the states.
The poorly attended assembly issued a call for a national convention "to render the constitution
of the Federal Government adequate to the exigencies of the Union." Madison led the Virginia
delegation to the Philadelphia meeting, which began on May 14, 1787, and supported the call for
General George Washington to act as its chair. Washington accepted and the body achieved the
moral authority it needed to draft a new constitution for the nation.
Madison emerged as the floor leader of those forces supporting a
strong central government. His Virginia Plan, submitted by Delegate Edmund Randolph,
who was the governor of Virginia, became the essential blueprint for the Constitution that
eventually emerged. Its major features included a bicameral national legislature with the lower
house directly elected by the people, an executive chosen by the legislature, and an independent
judiciary including a Supreme Court. Madison's extensive notes, which are the best source of
information available of the closed-door meetings, detailed the proceedings and his
activist role in shaping the outcome. By September 1787, Madison had emerged from the
Constitutional Convention as the most persuasive voice in favor of a new constitution,
eventually earning the revered title "Father of the Constitution."
After the document was presented to the states for ratification, Madison, along with Alexander
Hamilton and John Jay, published a series of newspaper essays that became known collectively
as the Federalist Papers. Writing under the pseudonym "Publius," Madison authored twenty-nine
of the eighty-five essays. He argued the case for a strong central government subject to an
extensive system of checks and balances wherein "ambition" would be counteracted by competing
ambition. This collection of documents, especially Madison's essay No. 51, are classic statements
on republican government and stand as a significant interpretation of the meaning and
intent of the U.S. Constitution.
Madison confronted his old opponent Patrick Henry, who successfully
worked to keep Madison from gaining a seat in the newly created U.S. Senate. Instead, Madison
won election to the U.S. House of Representatives over James Monroe in 1789. For the next several
years, Madison served as Washington's chief supporter in the House, working tirelessly on behalf
of the President's policies and politics. Most importantly, Madison introduced and guided to
passage the first ten amendments to the Constitution, which were ratified in 1791. Known as the
Bill of Rights, these amendments protected civil liberties and augmented the checks and balances
within the Constitution. In achieving the ratification of the Bill of Rights, Madison fulfilled
his promise to Jefferson, who had supported the Constitution with the understanding that Madison
would secure constitutional protections for various fundamental human rights. These included
religious liberty, freedom of speech, and due process against unreasonable, unsupported, or
impulsive governmental authority.
Madison broke with Washington over the chief executive's foreign and domestic policies.
He criticized Washington's support of Alexander Hamilton, the secretary of the treasury, who sought
to create a strong central government that promoted commercial and financial interests over
the farmers and planters interests. He also found fault with the administration's handling of
commercial relations with Great Britain and its favoritism of Britain over France
in the French Revolution.
Madison's join with Jefferson to form an opposition party known as the
Democratic-Republicans.
Madison surprised his friends in 1794 when he married Dolley Payne Todd. Dolley was
a twenty-six-year-old widow with one infant son, and Madison was forty-three year old man who had not
been interested in women since another had broken
his heart, to marry another man. Dolley had been introduced to Madison by a mutual friend
at a Philadelphia party. She immediately thought that he would be the man she could
love because of his gentle nature.
During the presidency of John Adams, Madison led the fight against the Federalist-supported
Alien and Sedition Acts. These laws, which attempted to suppress opposition to a Federalist
foreign policy that favored England over France, and were viewed by Democratic-Republicans as
fundamental violations of the Bill of Rights. Madison authored the Virginia Resolution, adopted
by the state legislature in 1798, which declared the laws unconstitutional. Jefferson authored
a similar Kentucky Resolution. Returning to the Virginia House of Delegates in 1799, Madison
campaigned for the election of Thomas Jefferson as President. When Jefferson won, Madison
became secretary of state. Madison retained that office until he was elected president in 1808.
As secretary of state, Madison supported the Louisiana Purchase, the war against the Barbary
pirates, and the embargo against Britain and France. It is said that Madison "governed the President"
in foreign affairs. Rather than suggesting a weak President, Madison's domination of foreign policy
actually rested upon the President's confidence in Madison and their mutual agreement on all
matters of diplomacy. By 1808, Madison was ready to succeed Jefferson as
the fourth President of the United States.
Many historians see his handling of the war as similar to Lincoln's war-time
management. Madison's government marshaled resources, faced down secessionist threats from New England
and proved to the British the folly of fighting wars with the Americans. He established respect for
American rights on the high seas, and emerged from the war with more popular support than when
he was first inaugurated in 1808. When considering that he ended up on
the winning side of every important issue that faced the nation from 1776 to 1816,
Madison was the most successful, and possibly the most influential of all the founding fathers.
