James Madison

James Madison, (1751-1836), 4th President of the United States of America. Although he served eight years each as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, as secretary of state, and as president, Madison's principal contribution to the founding of the United States was as "Father of the Constitution." Madison's place among the Founding Fathers reveals the essential qualities of his public career. Jefferson had a superior vision of the potential for life under republican government, a greater capacity for leadership, and a special gift for the memorable phrase, but Madison had a more subtle and incisive political sense. Madison's ancestors, probably all from England, settled in Virginia along the Rappahannock and Mattaponi rivers in the mid-17th century. James Madison himself, however, lived all his life in Orange county on a 5,000-acre plantation that produced tobacco and grains and was worked by 100 slaves. Madison was born at the home of his maternal grandparents in Port Conway, Va., on March 16, 1751. Madison also read John Locke, Isaac Newton, Jonathan Swift, David Hume, Voltaire, and others who fashioned the Enlightenment world view, which became his own. Madison's understanding of public affairs developed during the decade of colonial resistance to British measures, 1765-1775. Madison's skill led to his election in 1780 to the Continental Congress, where he served for nearly four years. In 1783, after ratification of the peace treaty and demobilization of the army, Madison ranked as a leading promoter of a stronger national government. For three years in the Virginia legislature, Madison worked to enact Jefferson's bill for religious freedom and other reform measures. He also continued to strengthen the national government by securing Virginia's support of it. Madison offered the Virginia plan giving taxing and law-enforcement powers to the national government, and he worked with James Wilson and other nationalists to support a strengthened executive, a broadly based House of Representatives, long terms in the Senate, an independent federal judiciary, and other devices to enhance national power.

Madison argued that an enlarged, strengthened national government, far from being the path to despotism its opponents feared, was in fact the surest way to protect freedom and expand the principle of self-government. Madison's notes on the debates prove the only full record of the convention's proceedings.

With Alexander Hamilton, Madison formulated strategy for the supporters of the Constitution, and wrote portions of The Federalist papers. He also attacked Patrick Henry, who did not believe that the Constitution fully protected Virginia and its people, in dramatic and finally successful debate at the Virginia ratifying convention . Madison and Jefferson viewed republican government as resting on the virtues of the people, sustained by the self-reliance of an agricultural economy and the benefits of public education, with government itself remaining "mild" and responsive to grass-roots impulses. This attitude became the foundation of the Democratic-Republican Party, which was fundamentally at odds with Hamilton's concept of a strong central government.

Madison and Jefferson then seized on widespread public sympathy for France's expansive, revolutionary exploits to promote republican sentiment in the United States. Madison bitterly opposed Jay's Treaty, feeling that it made the United States dependent on England and in fact tied America to the corrupt power-politics diplomacy of the Old World. With the final ratification of Jay's Treaty, Madison felt that a commercial junta that cared very little for the republican character of the nation had gained control. The war-like attitude toward France of President John Adams,' administration alarmed Madison. The XYZ AFFAIR brought the United States and France close to war. During the continiuous turmoil in the United States, the administration won passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts, which Madison believed threatened free government. Madison worked persistently and profoundly to think through and act out the meaning of freedom under law and of government by consent.

During the last of four years spent in Virginia attending to his plantation, working on his house, and sitting in the Virginia legislature, Madison worked hard to secure Jefferson's election as president in 1800. Madison took advantage of Napoleon's setback in the West Indies to guide negotiations to purchase Louisiana in 1803. He also insisted on American ownership of the Gulf Coast between New Orleans and Florida, and he supported suppression of the Barbary pirates by American naval squadrons.

The renewed war between France and Britain, however, became the major crisis, as both powers inflicted heavy damage on American shipping. Britain also engaged in the outrageous impressment of American sailors. Finding appeals to international law useless, and lacking power to protect American trade, Madison promoted the Embargo Act in 1807, which barred all exports to Europe, a further effort to apply his cherished principle that the United States could protect its rights by commercial policy rather than by resort to war. Consequently, Madison accepted its repeal at the end of Jefferson's administration.

Madison's easy election as president in 1808 continued the "Virginia Dynasty" though fury over the embargo in New England lost Madison the electoral votes of that region. Madison also had to overcome opposition that favored