James Madison (1751 - 1836) was an American statesman, political theorist and the fourth president of the United States, serving from 1809 to 1817. [1] Known as the "Father of the Constitution" for his central role at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, he co-wrote The Federalist Papers and drafted the amendments that became the Bill of Rights, while as president he led the country through the War of 1812. [2]
Early life and education
Madison was born on 16 March 1751 at Port Conway, Virginia, the eldest of twelve children in a wealthy planter family whose Montpelier estate in Orange County was worked by enslaved people. [1] He was tutored privately before entering the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University, where he completed the course in two years and stayed on to study further.
Returning to Virginia, he entered revolutionary politics, serving in the Virginia convention of 1776 and contributing to the state's Declaration of Rights, where he pressed successfully for language protecting free exercise of religion rather than mere toleration. He later worked with Thomas Jefferson to secure the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. [2]
The Constitution and the Bill of Rights
Service in the Continental Congress convinced Madison that the Articles of Confederation left the union dangerously weak. He prepared extensively for the Philadelphia convention of 1787, and the Virginia Plan he helped devise set the terms of debate, proposing a strong national government with separated powers and a bicameral legislature. [3] His detailed notes remain the fullest surviving record of the convention's proceedings.
To win ratification he wrote, with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, the essays published as The Federalist Papers; his contributions, especially Federalist No. 10 on factions and No. 51 on checks and balances, are among the most cited works of American political thought. [2] Elected to the first House of Representatives, he drafted and shepherded through Congress the amendments ratified in 1791 as the Bill of Rights.
Party politics and the presidency
Madison broke with Hamilton over fiscal policy and federal power, and with Jefferson organised the Democratic-Republican opposition to the Federalists. He served as Jefferson's secretary of state from 1801 to 1809, a period that included the Louisiana Purchase and mounting friction with Britain and France over neutral shipping. [1]
Elected president in 1808, he faced continued British interference with American trade and the impressment of sailors, and in 1812 asked Congress for a declaration of war. The conflict went badly at first: British forces burned the Capitol and the President's House in 1814. The war ended inconclusively with the Treaty of Ghent, but Andrew Jackson's victory at New Orleans and the survival of the republic produced a surge of national confidence. [3]
Later life and legacy
After leaving office in 1817 Madison retired to Montpelier, where he helped Jefferson found the University of Virginia and later served as its rector. He took part in Virginia's 1829 constitutional convention and opposed the doctrine of nullification in his final years. He died at Montpelier on 28 June 1836, the last surviving signer of the Constitution. [1]
Like other Virginia founders, Madison held people in slavery throughout his life and did not free them at his death, a contradiction with his stated principles that remains central to assessments of his career. [4] His constitutional design and his writings on republican government nonetheless continue to structure American political and legal argument.
