James Madison was an American statesman, the fourth president of the United States, and one of the key authors of the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Background
Madison was born on March 16, 1751, in Port Conway, Virginia, the oldest of twelve children of James and Eleanor Rose Conway Madison. The parents of James came from the families of large landowners, long-living in Virginia. As wealthy pioneers, they settled in the western foothills of the Blue Mountains, where fertile land was perfect for cultivating tobacco with the help of several dozen slaves. Undivided family plantation of Madison Montpellier was by 1800 the largest in the county and totaled about 10,000 acres and more than 100 slaves.
Education
Madison was schooled primarily at home. From ages 11 to 16, he was sent to study under Donald Robertson, an instructor at the Innes plantation in King and Queen County, Virginia in the Tidewater region.
He then studied history, government, and law at the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University). He received his bachelor of arts degree in 1771 and remained for six months studying under President John Witherspoon, whose intellectual independence, Scottish practicality, and moral earnestness profoundly influenced him.
Madison's skill led to his 1780 election to the Continental Congress, where he served for nearly four years, thus supporting the French alliance and Benjamin Franklin's policies in Europe. He also worked persistently to strengthen the powers of Congress.
After three years in Virginia helping enact Jefferson's bill for religious freedom and other reform measures, Madison worked toward the Constitutional Convention, which gathered in Philadelphia in May 1787. There, Madison spent the most fruitful months of his life. He formulated strategy for the supporters of the Constitution (Federalists), wrote portions of the Federalist Papers, and engaged Patrick Henry in dramatic and finally successful debate at the Virginia ratifying convention (June 1788). From the Annapolis Convention in 1786, when he had assumed leadership of the movement for a new constitution, through the end of the first session of Congress (October 1789), Madison was the guiding, creative force in establishing the new, republican government. He opposed Jay's Treaty, feeling that it would align the United States with England in a way that was dependent and betrayed republican principles. Thus, the final ratification of Jay's Treaty (April 1796), over Madison's bitter opposition, marked his declining influence in Congress.
Madison's drafts of the milder Virginia Resolutions and the Report of 1800 defending them are his most complete expression of the rights of the states under the Constitution.
Despite the unpopular Embargo Act of 1807, which did not make the belligerent nations change their ways but did cause a depression in the United States, Madison was elected President in 1808. Before he took office the Embargo Act was repealed. During the first year of Madison's Administration, the United States prohibited trade with both Britain and France; then in May, 1810, Congress authorized trade with both, directing the President, if either would accept America's view of neutral rights, to forbid trade with the other nation.
Napoleon pretended to comply. Late in 1810, Madison proclaimed non-intercourse with Great Britain. In Congress a young group including Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun, the "War Hawks," pressed the President for a more militant policy. The British impressment of American seamen and the seizure of cargoes impelled Madison to give in to the pressure.
On June 1, 1812, he asked Congress to declare war. The young Nation was not prepared to fight; its forces took a severe trouncing. The British entered Washington and set fire to the White House and the Capitol. But a few notable naval and military victories, climaxed by Gen. Andrew Jackson's triumph at New Orleans, convinced Americans that the War of 1812 had been gloriously successful. An upsurge of nationalism resulted. The New England Federalists who had opposed the war - and who had even talked secession - were so thoroughly repudiated that Federalism disappeared as a national party.
Madison left office on a positive note in 1817, while the country was enjoying prosperity and expansion. He returned officially to public life only to take part in the Virginia constitutional convention of 1829.
In his later years, Madison became highly concerned about his historic legacy. He resorted to modifying letters and other documents in his possession, changing days and dates, adding and deleting words and sentences, and shifting characters.
He died at Montpelier on the morning of June 28, 1836, and is buried in the family cemetery at there.
Although educated by Presbyterian clergymen, young Madison was an avid reader of English deist tracts. As an adult, he paid little attention to religious matters. Though most historians have found little indication of his religious leanings after he left college, some scholars indicate he leaned toward deism. Others maintain that Madison accepted Christian tenets and formed his outlook on life with a Christian world view.
Regardless of his own religious beliefs, Madison believed in religious liberty, and he advocated for Virginia's disestablishment of the Anglican Church throughout the late 1770s and 1780s. He also opposed the appointments of chaplains for Congress and the armed forces, arguing that the appointments produce religious exclusion as well as political disharmony.
Politics
Madison's democratic-republican views took place in his work. He was a leader promoter and defender of the Constitution during the ratification process. He later championed its first ten amendments, the Bill of Rights. Madison argued for expanding voting rights and attempting to limit slavery in the state.
Views
Quotations:
"History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and it's issuance."
"The future and success of America is not in this Constitution, but in the laws of God upon which this Constitution is founded."
"We are free today substantially, but the day will come when our Republic will be an impossibility. It will be an impossibility because wealth will be concentrated in the hands of a few. A Republic cannot stand upon bayonets, and when the day comes when the wealth of the nation will be in the hands of a few, then we must rely upon the wisdom of the best elements in the country to readjust the laws of the nations to the changed conditions."
"Freedom has more often been lost in small steps by progressive incrementalism, than it has been by catastrophic upheavals such as violence or war."
"Whatever may be the judgement pronounced on the competency of the architects of the Constitution, or whatever may be the destiny of the edifice prepared by them, I feel it a duty to express my profound and solemn conviction . . . that there never was an assembly of men, charged with a great and arduous trust, who were more pure in their motives, or more exclusively or anxiously devoted to the object committed to them."
Personality
Skillful in debate and levelheaded, Madison was able to balance ideals and realities, conviction and compromise. Though he was small in stature, he was large in character, and helped find practical ways to establish a republican form of goverment representing the will of the people and able to improve on its own imperfections. For although he inspired warm friendship among his intimates, he was unable to obtain enthusiastic loyalty from either Congress or the country.
Physical Characteristics:
Standing just five feet, four inches tall and weighing about 100 pounds, he was the smallest of all United States presidents.
Quotes from others about the person
"Madison was the last of the Founding Fathers who had steered nation to independence. Madison always recognized the necessity of a strong federal government, and expanded upon his own ideas to begin programs that would further strengthen the nation. He expanded the power of the presidency, putting the nation's concerns above the interests of individual states." - Roger Matuz
"Madison was shy and reserved with strangers and never learned the politically useful art of small talk. Because of this shyness, as well as his small stature and weak voice, he made a very bad first impression. Contributing to his poor image was his deliberative nature He deferred decisions whenever possible until all sides had been considered thoroughly. For this, some regard him as weak and indecisive. But others agreed with Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin, who said, 'Mr. Madison is... slow in taking ground, but firm when the storm rises.'" - William A. DeGregorio
"Madison could not escape the specter of slavery and the risk that it would sever the American union. As a young politician, Madison struggled with the contradiction between slavery and America's revolutionary ideals. His ideals … Madison had not absorbed the race prejudices of his time and place. He never denied that the African Americans he owned were human beings like him … Madison accepted emancipated blacks on an equal footing … When a free black man brought a message to Montpelier nine years later, James and Dolley invited the man to join the company for dinner and evening conversation. The visitor spent the night at Montpelier. After breakfast, he borrowed a horse to continue his journey." - David O. Stewart
Connections
Madison's wife was the daughter of Quaker, Dolly Payne (1768-1849), one of the most intelligent and discerning women of her time, who, at the request of the widower Jefferson, played the role of the first lady of the United States. The couple had no children but did adopt the son of his wife, John Payne Todd (known as Payne), after the marriage.