AMERICAN POLICY EXAMINER. A Tea Party Activist's Guide to American Political Science.

President James Madison (1751 - 1836)

Biography

Considered the 'Father of the Constitution' James Madison was its primary author and sponsor of its first ten amendments. His role in the founding of the United States could not be understated as he was a fierce proponent of American independence and the construction of the new Constitution. He was one of three authors of the Federalist Papers, which promoted the Constitution to his fellow delegates at the Continental Congress and skeptics in the public. Madison was a member of Congress, Secretary of State under Thomas Jefferson, and the fourth President of the United States of America.

On March 16, 1751, James Madison was born into the family of James Madison Sr, who was a tobacco planter and leading landowner and squire in Orange County, Virginia. James Madison developed an extensive education from a young age. First studying under Donald Robertson in King and Queen County, Virginia, Madison began to become learned in the areas of mathematics, geography, and several ancient and modern languages.

By the age of 16, Madison began to prepare for college under the instruction of Reverend Thomas Martin in Montpelier, Virginia and by 1769 Madison enrolled into the College of New Jersey (Princeton University) because of its climate and anti-episcopacy reputation. While at New Jersey, Madison finished his four year curriculum of ancient languages, geography, mathematics, philosophy and rhetoric in just two years. Despite health problems, Madison remained at Princeton to study Hebrew and political philosophy for two years. His exhaustive work ethic led to epileptoid hysteria and prevented him from joining the military during the Revolution.

In 1772, Madison returned to Montpelier where he continued personal education, particularly self-education in public law. He also became a fierce advocate for independence and notably became an adamant defender of Baptist dissenters of the controlling Anglican Church. It is clear that one of is principled priorities was religious freedom for those in the American colonies. In addition to defending opposition to the Anglican Church, Madison worked with preacher Elijah Craig on guarantees of religious freedom in the Virginia Constitution.

In 1776 Madison's health improved and he was elected to Virginia's Revolutionary Convention. The Convention transformed into a legislature, and from 1776 to 1779 Madison climb the ranks of the this Virginia legislature and became well-known for his work with Thomas Jefferson in drafting the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which guaranteed religious freedoms by disassociating religion from government, particularly England and the Anglican Church.

Although Madison was unable to succeed in reelection, he served for two years on the governor's council and was sent to the Continental Congress in the spring of 1780. Understanding the weakness of the loosely-held American colonies, Madison was in opposition to many state's sovereignty advocates because he feared that the inability of the colonies to function together would inevitably lead to the dissolution of the United States as a whole.

Madison was a principled force in the fight of the territorial integrity of the United States and asserted that the western boundaries extended to the Mississippi and that Americans had a right to navigate the Mississippi River through the Spanish-controlled delta. Because of these positions, Madison was a roadblock to the Franco-U.S. peace negotiations.

James Madison worked ardently to prevent the new nation from collapse. He successfully persuaded Virginia to relinquish claims to northwestern territories of what is now Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin to the Continental Congress so that it could create the Northwest Territory, which was realized in 1783.

Upon the ratification of the Articles of Confederation in 1781, Madison continued his efforts to strengthen the Confederation because he understood it to continue to be too week. Madison worked to establish the right of the Confederation to raise revenue through a new article, fearing the inability to do so as a guarantee of its disintegration.

At the end of the war, James Madison rejoined the state legislature of Virginia and became increasingly aware of the fledgling Confederation and the divisiveness of the state governments. He began to strongly advocate a new constitution that would give more power to the central government in order to keep the new states together.

Madison helped in the development and coordination of a new convention in Philadelphia in 1787. At the Convention, Madison drafted the Virginia Plan which became the chief agenda-setting item. The Plan consisted of 15 resolutions to fundamentally change the structure of the national government. Mainly, it sought to transform representation of the governments into one based on state population and to change the structure of the government into three branches: executive, legislative, and judicial, which would embody a system of checks and balances.

The Virginia Plan was instrumental in the development of a new Constitution. To promote the new document, Madison joined John Jay and Alexander Hamilton in writing the Federalist Papers in 1787 and 1788. The Federalist Papers were essential in the campaign for the new national government. A booklet was drawn up which encompassed all of the papers and was given to the delegates at the Philadelphia Convention in order to have maximum influence over those the decision-makers.

The papers were also published over the course of many months in public publications in New York in order to educate and persuade the its populace. New York, at the time, was the most skeptical of the states. The papers explained in detail, the meaning of each and every aspect of the proposed Constitution, which was chiefly authored by Madison himself.

The opposition to Madison and the 'Federalists' was strong, however, and his main opponents became referred to as the 'ant-federalists.' The anti-Federalists were skeptical of a stronger national government and were concerned about the preservation of fundamental rights, which they wanted to embody in the constitution. Madison was opposed to such a 'Bill of Rights' because he felt that they were already in the Constitution and that the presence of such a bill could have the effect of being misrepresented by future governments which could interpret the Bill as being the only rights of the states and the people rather than an elaboration of a few rights that are among the many.

As a means of compromise, James Madison changed course and became an advocate of a Bill of Rights, so long as it addressed his concerns. Madison took the initiative of reviewing proposals for hundreds of versions for a Bill of Rights and authored a package of proposed amendments he felt necessary. Although the Bill was not presented as part of the original Constitution, it was offered as ten amendments soon after the Constitution's ratification.

James Madison was elected to the First Congress of 1787 and there served four terms in the House of Representatives. During this time, he split with his colleague Alexander Hamilton over how to fund the war debt. Hamilton, the first Secretary of Treasury, created a first national bank. Madison opposed the move, claiming that the national government did not have the power to do so. He lost the battle to Hamilton, however, and with it, any hope for government unity.

Before the end of tenure in Congress, Madison joined Thomas Jefferson in leading a new political party in opposition to the Federalists. This new party became known as the Democratic-Republicans and its chief objective was to enforce strict limitations on the federal government and opposed those who sided with Britain over France in the European wars that broke out during the early years of George Washington's administration.

In 1793 Britain and France went to war and the U.S. was caught in the middle of the conflict. On the one hand, the new nation was still under the 1778 treaty alliance with France, but on the other, most of American trade was with Britain. When in 1794 Britain seized hundreds of American ships that were in trade with France, it seemed that another war was eminent. Madison believed that a trade war with Britain was the best solution. However, George Washington resisted conflict and implemented a doctrine of neutrality, which avoided direct conflict. In what is known as the Jay Treaty, named after its advocate John Jay, the United States cooled tensions with Britain and sought regular trade relations. Madison and Jefferson were deeply opposed to it.

In September of 1794, James Madison married Dolley Payne Todd, a young Quaker woman seventeen years younger than himself. Dolley was well known for her presence at social functions in Philadelphia, which was the capital at the time and was introduced through Madison's friend Aaron Burr. Because Madison was not a Quaker, Dolley left the community once married.

Madison left Congress in 1797 after losing his battle in opposition to the Jay Treaty. When the Federalists enacted the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, Madison became motivated to draft Resolutions through Virginia which denounced the statutes as unconstitutional.

In 1801, Thomas Jefferson appointed Madison to his Cabinet as Secretary of State, a position he served for the entire eight years of Jefferson's presidency. The biggest and continuous obstacle as Secretary was the constant warring between Britain and France. Despite the difficulty of creating a neutral and balanced policy among the two great powers, Madison was able to secure the Louisiana Purchase from Napoleon of France in 1803. Although this was a big success, the tensions between Britain and France inevitably led to some unsuccessful policies.

Because of Britain and France's unwillingness to cooperate with the continuing neutrality of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, likely under the guidance of Madison, requested the Embargo Act of 1807 be drafted. The bill initially called to ban imports into the United States, but eventually led to the banning of exports as well. The embargo was doomed to failure because of its loopholes and the inability to effectively implement it. Although it did have some positive effects in driving capital and labor into New England and decreasing reliance on Britain, the embargo led to an economic downturn and was repealed just two years after enactment and just days before Thomas Jefferson left office.

Despite the economic depression, Thomas Jefferson still had high regard in the eyes of the electorate and James Madison was able to use Jefferson's popularity to his advantage. Jefferson's popularity coupled with the publication of Madison's diplomatic dispatches to counter charges of being weak with Britain boosted Madison into the presidency in 1809.

As president James Madison was faced with many of the same obstacles that burdened his tenure as Secretary of State. Navigating around the fighting between France and Britain proved to be impossible. Additionally, Britain began to increase its provocation of the United States with its efforts to suppress American trade and commerce.

For the first three years of his first term in office, James Madison was able to prevent a war with England, despite believing that it would be inevitable. For the first two years, Madison took the initiative of writing all major diplomatic letters. It was only after appointing James Monroe as his Secretary of State that he entrusted this responsibility to another person. While staving off war with Britain, Madison also took control of the Spanish province of West Florida, which was claimed by the United States under the Louisiana Purchase.

In keeping with his belief that the first Bank of the United States was not constitutionally permitted, Madison let its charter expire in 1811. However, when war eventually broke out with Britain in the War of 1812, Madison found that financing the war was becoming increasingly difficult without the bank. Before the end of his second term, Madison changed course and developed a new policy for a bank that would be suitable to both those who had supported the original and those who were opposed to the increasing power of the federal government.

The year of 1812 was a complicated year, being the election year and the year that war broke out with Britain. Despite his best efforts to push Congress to authorize the strengthening of the U.S. Navy and Army, his pleas went unanswered. Additionally, Madison's Army generals who were mostly aging veterans of the Revolution proved to be unable to hold off the superior British land forces. The weak state of the young nation's veteran forces and its depleted resources left it incapable of successfully defeating the British in the early years and in the summer of 1812, the British invaded Washington D.C. British forces burned all of the public buildings in the Capitol, including the White House. The President and his wife were forced to flee.

Despite these losses, Madison succeeded in replenishing his forces with younger generals and succeeded in detoxifying the factious politics in Washington D.C. In doing so, he was able to successfully stymie the British offensive and became victorious. With the principle causes of the war having already been resolved at the beginning of the conflict, there really was not a reason for the continuation of war.

In 1815, the war ended with overwhelming public approval, which boosted Madison's popularity to its pinnacle. The Federalist's opposition to the war and the corresponding victory that followed led to the disintegration of the Federalist Party, leaving Secretary James Monroe the favorite in the elections that followed Madison's retirement.

After leaving office, James Madison retired to his home in Virginia where he remained for the remaining years of his life. He managed a large tobacco plantation for 19 years, cultivating it with modern innovative methods. Madison opposed slavery and often bought slaves as a means of freeing them. He also assisted Thomas Jefferson in the creation of the University of Virginia, the first public university. He served as its second president after the death of Thomas Jefferson in 1826. In 1829, Madison made his last appearance in politics as a representative to the Virginia state constitutional convention in Richmond, where the chief issue was apportionment and the counting of non-voting slaves in the population.

Despite serious health problems, Madison lived for several more years. He died on June 28, 1836 in Montpelier. He was the last remaining of the Founding Fathers.