MADISON, JAMES

James Madison was the fourth president of the United States, serving from 1809 to 1817. Before achieving the nation's highest office, he participated in the Virginia Constitutional Convention; was a delegate to the continental congress; drafted a proposal for the U.S. Constitution; supported ratification of the Constitution, through The Federalist Papers, written with alexander hamilton and john jay; served in the House of Representatives; helped write the bill of rights; and was Thomas Jefferson's secretary of state.

Born March 16, 1751, in Port Conway, Virginia, Madison was the first of 11 children in his family. His father, James Madison Sr., was the wealthiest landowner in Orange County, Virginia, and provided Madison with a stable and comfortable upbringing. Eleanor Conway Madison, his mother, was an affectionate woman who gave the family emotional support throughout her ninety-eight years of life.

Madison grew up on an isolated plantation in Montpelier, Virginia. As a teenager he attended school in King and Queen County, studying logic, philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and French, among other subjects. Although Madison suffered from ill health during much of his youth, he developed a reputation as an intense and ambitious student at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), which he attended from 1769 to 1772.

By 1774 it was becoming clear to many observers that the differences between the colonists and the British government could not be resolved peacefully. During that year Parliament passed the Coercive Acts, which closed the Boston Port, restricted town assemblies, and authorized British authorities to house their troops in private colonial residences. In September 1774 the First Continental Congress convened to discuss the emerging crisis with Great Britain. Unlike many colonists, who were reluctant to take any radical measures before Parliament

could respond to the petition of grievances drafted by Congress, Madison favored immediate military preparations.

As Madison became more politically vocal, he became more politically active. In December 1774 he was elected to the Orange County Committee of Safety, one of many colonial bodies formed to carry out congressional mandates such as the American boycott of English goods. In October 1775, six months after the Revolution began in Lexington and Concord, Madison was commissioned a colonel in the county militia. In 1776, at age 25, he was elected as a delegate to the Virginia Provincial Convention, where he helped draft Virginia's constitution.

In May 1776 the Virginia Provincial Convention, later known as the New House of Delegates, instructed its representatives at the Second Continental Congress to draft a declaration of independence, negotiate foreign alliances, and complete the U.S. articles of confederation. The Articles of Confederation empowered Congress to govern certain areas of national concern, including foreign policy. The several states retained power to govern most other issues within their own borders.

"But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external or internal controls on government would be necessary."
—James Madison

In the New House of Delegates, Madison forged a friendship with Jefferson that would leave an indelible imprint on U.S. law and U.S. history. Jefferson and Madison shared a love for books, ideas, and solitude. Jefferson had authored the Declaration of Independence, and Madison would be considered the architect of the U.S. Constitution. But whereas Jefferson was idealistic and impetuous, Madison was more realistic and rational. Although Madison was eight years younger than Jefferson, his thoughtful temperament often helped palliate the mercurial Jefferson. From 1777 to 1779, Madison served as a cabinet member for Jefferson, who was the governor of Virginia.

In December 1779 Virginia chose Madison as one of its five delegates to the Continental Congress. Earning respect for his sober and methodical approach to lawmaking as well as his intellectual prowess, Madison helped Congress pass a revenue measure that rescued the fledgling nation from bankruptcy. Over the next three years, Madison learned how to shape an agenda and to achieve results through compromise.

On April 15, 1783, Congress ratified a peace treaty with Great Britain that concluded the Revolutionary War, and won U.S. independence. This year also marked the end of Madison's tenure with the Continental Congress. After returning home to Virginia, Madison was elected by the voters of Orange County to the state legislature in 1784.

During the 1784 fall session, the Virginia assembly approved an act to incorporate the Episcopal Church, and postponed action on another bill that sought to subsidize Christianity by levying a tax on behalf of teachers who taught this religion. In response to this proposed bill, Madison anonymously published a short leaflet entitled Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments. This leaflet called for a separation of church and state, denounced government aid to religion, declared the equality of all religions, and articulated a general liberty to worship according to the dictates of one's conscience without fear of persecution. Many copies of the leaflet were distributed to the state assembly in October 1785, along with supporting signatures, which helped influence enough legislators to defeat the Christian subsidy.

The following year Madison joined Hamilton in urging Congress to summon a national convention at Philadelphia to draft a federal constitution that would replace the Articles of Confederation. Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress had no power to regulate commerce. As a result the thirteen states engaged in a series of trade wars with each other. Many states imposed discriminatory taxes and regulations on goods imported from other states, and some states refused to import any goods from neighboring states.

Also under the Articles of Confederation, Congress had no power to tax. When Congress requested money to pay for the public debt and the Continental Army, the states often failed to respond. Consequently, the national debt grew and the Continental Army suffered a rash of desertions. Congressional ability to obtain credit dwindled. Madison observed that the 13 states would be in a precarious and vulnerable position if the country were required to defend its borders against foreign invasion.

Congress was the country's only federal government body; the Articles of Confederation did not provide for an executive branch to enforce congressional will, or a judicial branch to resolve disputes. This single body was virtually powerless to do anything about outbreaks of

rebellion that were becoming more frequent in the states. For example, it offered no reasonable resolution for shays's rebellion of 1786, an insurrection of nearly two thousand farmers who were protesting Massachusetts's land foreclosure laws.

Fifty-five delegates representing 12 states attended the Constitutional Convention during the summer of 1787. Reaching Philadelphia on May 14, Madison was the first delegate to arrive from any state other than Pennsylvania. Business would not begin until May 25, when a quorum of seven states would first be present. Madison seized the intervening 11 days to draft a 15-point proposal that formed the underpinnings of the U.S. Constitution.

Known as the Virginia Plan, this proposal presented a radical departure from the Articles of Confederation. In it, with help from the other Virginia delegates, Madison suggested a constitutional system comprising a strong centralized federal government with three branches: executive, legislative, and judicial. The sovereignty granted to each branch would be limited by the sovereignty granted to the other two branches and by the concurrent sovereignty retained by the states. This system of checks and balances had no predecessor in history.

The Virginia Plan provided the blueprint for a bicameral (two-chamber) legislature, with an upper chamber known as the Senate and a lower chamber known as the House of Representatives. As originally conceived, the plan gave Congress the indefinite power to legislate in all "cases to which the states are not competent." State governments would retain authority to legislate local concerns, and to create constitutional systems of their own. However, Madison made clear that the federal government would be supreme, and that any state law in contravention of the U.S. Constitution, a congressional enactment, or a federal treaty would be void.

At the same time, Madison's proposal for a broad grant of undefined congressional power was jettisoned. Madison argued that Congress should be given more legislative authority than state legislatures because state laws had been largely responsible for the recent trade wars and farmer rebellions. However, Madison was unable to explain why the federal government, made up of representatives from the several states, should be trusted to exercise its lawmaking powers any more prudently than had the state governments. Thus, the delegates persuaded Madison that the powers of the executive and legislative branches must be limited to those expressly enumerated in the Constitution. However, one of those enumerated powers, Congress's power to make all laws "necessary and proper" in the performance of its legislative function, has provided a broad constitutional basis for federal lawmaking similar to that originally envisioned by Madison.

The necessary and proper clause was only one of the constitutional provisions vigorously defended in The Federalist Papers, a series of essays written by Madison, Hamilton, and Jay that explained and promoted the system of government created by the Philadelphia convention. Called The Federalist Papers because proponents of the federal Constitution were known as Federalists, this collection of essays was circulated among the delegates to the state ratifying conventions, in an effort to win their support. Opponents of the federal Constitution, known as Anti-Federalists, published and circulated essays and leaflets of their own.

Some Anti-Federalists eventually lent their support to the ratification movement when Madison and other Federalists promised to draft a bill of rights that would protect individual liberty and state sovereignty from encroachment by the federal government. In 1788 the Constitution was adopted by the states. The next year Madison was elected to the House of Representatives, where he subsequently represented Virginia for eight years. During the First Congress, in 1789, Madison drafted 12 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, ten of which were ultimately adopted by the states, with some subtle changes in language, and now stand as the Bill of Rights.

Neither the Constitution nor the Bill of Rights expressly mentions the power of judicial review, which is the prerogative of state and federal courts to invalidate laws that violate a constitutional provision or principle. Article VI declares that the federal Constitution "shall be the supreme Law of the Land." Yet it does not state whether the executive, legislative, and judicial branches possess the power to nullify laws that are unconstitutional. Although the Framers of the Constitution recognized that courts had traditionally exercised the authority to interpret and apply the law, the power of judicial review had never been a clearly established practice in Anglo-American legal history.

In the landmark case marbury v. madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 2 L. Ed. 60 (1803), the U.S. Supreme Court established the power of judicial review in the United States. While serving as secretary of state to President Jefferson (1801–1809), Madison was sued by William Marbury, a judge who had been appointed to the federal bench during the waning hours of President John Adams's administration. Marbury argued that Madison had violated his duties as secretary of state by failing to deliver to Marbury a commission that he needed to complete his appointment to the federal judiciary.

Although the Supreme Court agreed that Madison had wrongfully withheld the commission, it denied Marbury's claim because it had been brought pursuant to an unconstitutional provision of a federal statute. By invalidating that provision, the Supreme Court established the power of judicial review. When Madison learned of the Supreme Court's decision, he criticized the judicial branch for attempting to usurp congressional lawmaking power.

Madison said that to allow unelected federal judges to overturn legislation enacted by the popularly elected branches of government makes "the judicial department paramount in fact to the legislature, which was never intended, and can never be proper." Madison changed his mind on this issue near the end of his life. As an elder statesman attending the Virginia Constitutional Convention in 1829, and as a director for the University of Virginia from 1826 to 1834, he assailed the nullification theories of southern legislators who proclaimed the prerogative to ignore federal laws in certain circumstances. Only the judiciary, Madison concluded, had the power to declare federal laws unconstitutional.

Serving as the fourth president of the United States (1809–17), Madison revealed the same propensity to reevaluate strongly held beliefs in light of experience. Earlier in his career, he had opposed the creation of a congressionally chartered national bank. He had initially believed that under no faithful interpretation of the Constitution was Congress authorized to establish a national bank. Yet, in 1816 Madison signed a bill that established the Second Bank of the United States, agreeing that it represented a constitutional exercise of congressional power. Popular acceptance of the First Bank of the United States had altered Madison's perception.

The war of 1812 provided some of the best and worst moments of Madison's presidency. During the low point of the war with Great Britain, English troops occupied Washington, D.C., and burned down the White House. Despite other such humiliating moments for the U.S. military, Madison's troops rebounded in 1815 and soundly defeated the British in the final battle of the war at New Orleans. Although Americans gained nothing tangible from the war, they had successfully defended their soil.

The perseverance and resolve demonstrated by Madison and his troops during the war proved to be an important step in the maturation process of the young republic. By winning the War of 1812 and defeating British troops for a second time in less than half a century, john adams remarked, Madison brought more glory to the United States than any of his three predecessors in office. Madison also unified the country like never before in its short history, allowing his successors to build upon the emerging national identity.

After the close of his second term, Madison retired from public office and returned home to Montpelier, Virginia, where he devoted long hours to farming and became president of the local agricultural society. Madison welcomed retirement, seeing it as an opportunity to renew his passion for reading and resume his correspondence with thomas jefferson.

He died on June 28, 1836.

further readings

Abney, David L. 1994. "Constitutional Interpretation: Moving Toward a Jurisprudence of Common Sense." Temple Law Review 67.

Bailyn, Bernard. 1977. The Great Republic. Lexington, Mass.: Heath.

Goldwin, Robert A. 1997. From Parchment to Power: How James Madison Used the Bill of Rights to Save the Constitution. Washington, D.C.: AEI Press.

Hawkins, Michael Daly. 1999. "Mr. Madison, Meet the Modern Judiciary & Its Critics." Oklahoma City University Law Review 24 (spring-summer): 303–7.

Levy, Leonard W. 1988. Original Intent and the Framers' Constitution. New York: Macmillan.

Madison, James. 1987. Notes of the Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787. Edited by Adrienne Koch. New York: Norton.

Meyers, Marvin, ed. 1981. The Mind of the Founder: Sources of the Political Thought of James Madison. Rev. ed. Hanover: Univ. Press of New England.

Rakove, Jack. 2002. "Judicial Power in the Constitutional Theory of James Madison. William and Mary Law Review 43 (March): 1513.

——. 1990. James Madison and the Creation of the American Republic. New York: HarperCollins.

Reiss, David. 2002. "Jefferson and Madison as Icons in Judicial History: A Study of Religion Clause Jurisprudence. Maryland Law Review 61 (winter): 94–176.

Scott, James Brown. 2001. James Madison's Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 and Their Relation to a More Perfect Society of Nations. Union, N.J.: Lawbook Exchange.

Wills, Garry. 2002. James Madison. New York: Times Books.

Wood, Gordon S. 1969. The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787. New York: Norton.

cross-references

Bank of the United States; Constitution of the United States; Federalism; Federalist Papers; Virginia Conventions.

James Madison

James Madison (1751-1836), the fourth president of the United States, was one of the principal founders of America's republican form of government.

James Madison lived all his life in the county of Orange, Va., on a 5,000-acre plantation that produced tobacco and grains and was worked by perhaps 100 slaves. Though Madison abhorred slavery and had no use for the aristocratic airs of Virginia society, he remained a Virginia planter, working within the traditional political system of family-based power and accepting the responsibility this entailed. Like his neighbors and friends Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe, Madison worked creatively if not always consistently to make republican government a reality amid a social system and a slave economy often deeply at odds with principles of self-government and individual fulfillment.

After learning the fundamentals at home, Madison went to preparatory school and then to the College of New Jersey at Princeton. The bookish boy got a thorough classical education as he learned Latin and Greek. Since all of his teachers were clergymen, he was also continually exposed to Christian thought and precepts. 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 also had gained a wide acquaintance with the new thought of the 18th century and admired John Locke, Isaac Newton, Jonathan Swift, David Hume, Voltaire, and others who fashioned the Enlightenment world view, which became his own.

American Revolution

From his first consciousness of public affairs Madison opposed British colonial measures. He served on the Orange County Committee of Safety from 1774, and two years later he was elected to the Virginia convention that resolved for independence and drafted a new state constitution. His special contribution was in strengthening the clause on religious freedom to proclaim "liberty of conscience for all"—an exceptionally liberal view. Elected to the governor's council in 1777, he lived in Williamsburg for two years, dealing with the routine problems of the Revolutionary War. He also began a lifelong friendship with Governor Thomas Jefferson.

Madison's skill led to his 1780 election to the Continental Congress, where he served for nearly four years. During the first year he became one of the leaders of the so-called nationalist group, which saw fulfillment of the Revolution possible only under a strong central government. Madison thus supported the French alliance and Benjamin Franklin's policies in Europe. He also worked persistently to strengthen the powers of Congress. By the end of his service in 1783, after ratification of the peace treaty and demobilization of the army, Madison was among the half dozen leading promoters of stronger national government. He had also earned a reputation as an exceedingly well-informed and effective debater and legislator.

Constitution Making

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 advocated the Virginia plan for giving real power to the national government, guided George Washington and other Virginia delegates to support this plan, worked with James Wilson and other nationalists, accepted compromises, and—altogether—became the most constructive member of the convention.

Madison's basic theoretical contribution was his argument 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. His concept of "factions" in a large republic counteracting each other, built into a constitution of checks and balances, became the vital, operative principle of the American government. In addition to taking part in the debates, Madison took notes on them; published posthumously, these afford the only full record of the convention.

Establishment of the New Government

Madison shared leadership in the ratification struggle with Alexander Hamilton. 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). Then, as Washington's closest adviser and as a member of the first Federal House of Representatives, Madison led in establishing the new government. He drafted Washington's inaugural address and helped the President make the precedent-setting appointments of his first term.

In Congress, Madison proposed new revenue laws, ensured the President's control over the executive branch, and proposed the Bill of Rights. 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.

Growth of the Party System

However, Hamilton's financial program, presented in January 1790, and Madison's quick opposition to it marked the beginning of Madison's coleadership, with Jefferson, of what became the Democratic-Republican party. Madison opposed the privileged position Hamilton accorded to commerce and wealth, especially when it became apparent that this power could awe and sometimes control the organs of government.

Madison and Jefferson saw 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 their political party, which was fundamentally at odds with Hamilton's centralized concept of government, requiring strong leadership.

As Madison and Jefferson organized opposition to Hamilton, they seized on widespread public sympathy for France's expansive, revolutionary exploits to promote republican sentiment in the United States. The Federalists, on the other hand, cherished America's renewed commercial bonds with Britain and feared disruptive, entangling involvement with France. Madison 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. A year later he retired to Virginia.

Madison viewed with alarm the bellicose attitude toward France of John Adams's administration. He felt that the "XYZ" hysteria, resulting in the Alien and Sedition Acts, severely threatened free government. With Jefferson, he executed the protest against these acts embodied in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798. 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. He did not, however, advocate either nullification or secession, as some later claimed. The political frustrations of the years 1793-1800 were relieved by Madison's happy marriage in 1794 to the vivacious widow Dolley (or Dolly) Payne Todd, whose name became a symbol for effusive hospitality in Washington social life.

Secretary of State

Madison worked hard to secure Jefferson's election as president in 1800 and was appointed secretary of state. With the President and the new secretary of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin, he made up the Republican triumvirate that guided the nation for eight years. Madison skillfully took advantage of Napoleon's misfortune in the West Indies to purchase Louisiana in 1803 and supported suppression of the Barbary pirates by American naval squadrons (1803-1805). The renewed war between France and Britain, however, became a 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 1807 embargo, which barred American ships from the high seas. However, an unexpected capacity by the belligerents to replace American trade, and substantial smuggling and other evasions by Americans, prevented the embargo from having real force. Madison therefore accepted its repeal at the end of Jefferson's administration.

The President

Elected president in 1808, Madison continued his struggle to find peace with honor amid world war. Republican doctrine, which he shared in part, precluded a heavy military buildup, so Madison's administration lurched from one ineffective commercial policy to another. At the same time, interparty squabbling, Cabinet shuffles, and powerful opposition in Congress undermined his authority. Finally, in November 1811, receiving only insults and deceit from Europe and most heavily injured by Britain, Madison asked Congress for war. "War Hawks," led by Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun, spurred Congress to some inadequate defense measures, and, as final peace attempts failed, war with England was declared in June 1812. Bitter, active opposition to the war by virtually all New England preachers and politicians (near treasonable in Madison's eyes) severely hindered the war effort and added to the President's difficulties. He nonetheless was reelected easily in 1812.

War of 1812

Madison hoped that American zeal and the vulnerability of Canada would lead to a swift victory. However, the surrender of one American army at Detroit, the defeat of another on the Niagara frontier, and the disgraceful retreat of yet another before Montreal blasted these hopes. Then victories at sea, and the 1813 defeat of the British by Commodore O. H. Perry on Lake Erie and by Gen. W. H. Harrison on the Thames battlefield, buoyed American hopes. Yet the chaos in American finance, Napoleon's debacles in Europe, and another fruitless military campaign in New York State left Madison disheartened. His enemies gloated over his nearly fatal illness in June 1813. New England threatened secession, and the republican government seemed likely to fail the test of survival in war.

The summer of 1814 brought to the American battlefields thousands of battle-hardened British troops. They fought vastly improved American armies to a standstill on the Niagara frontier and appeared in Chesapeake Bay intent on capturing Washington. Madison unwisely entrusted defense of the city to a sulking secretary of war, John Armstrong, and to an inept general, William H. Winder. A small but well-disciplined British force defeated the disorganized Americans at Bladensburg as Madison watched from a nearby hillside. His humiliation was complete when he saw flames of the burning Capitol and White House while fleeing across the Potomac River. However, after he returned to Washington 3 days later, he was soon cheered by news of the British defeat in Baltimore Harbor. News also arrived that two American forces had driven back a powerful British force coming down Lake Champlain.

Thus, with Armstrong dismissed and a new secretary of the Treasury, Alexander J. Dallas, restoring American credit, Madison felt that his peace commission in Ghent could demand decent terms from Britain. On Christmas Eve, 1814, a peace treaty was signed restoring the prewar boundaries and ensuring American national self-respect. Andrew Jackson's victory at New Orleans achieved on the battlefield what the treaty makers recognized at Ghent: Britain had lost any remaining hope of dominating its former colonies or blocking United States expansion into the Mississippi Valley.

In his last two years as president, Madison urged a sweeping program of internal development. Madison's program, though only partially enacted by Congress, showed that republican principles were not incompatible with positive action by the Federal government. He retired from office in March 1817, enjoying a popularity unimaginable a few years earlier.

Years of Retirement

In happy retirement at Montpelier, Madison practiced scientific agriculture, helped Jefferson found the University of Virginia, advised Monroe on foreign policy, arranged his papers for posthumous publication, and maintained wide correspondence. He returned officially to public life only to take part in the Virginia constitutional convention of 1829. However, informally, he wrote influentially in support of a mildly protective tariff and the national bank, among other issues. Most important, he lent intellectual leadership and vast prestige to the fight against nullification, which in Madison's eyes betrayed the benefits of the union for which he had fought all his life. But his health slowly declined, forcing him more and more to be a silent observer. By the time of his death on June 28, 1836, he was the last of the great founders of the American Republic.

Further Reading

Madison's writings are collected in W.T. Hutchinson and others, eds., The Papers of James Madison (6 vols. to date, 1962-1969). The standard biography is Irving Brant, James Madison (6 vols., 1941-1961); a one volume abridgment of this is The Fourth President: The Life of James Madison (1970). Another account is Ralph Ketcham, James Madison (1971). Adrienne Koch, Jefferson and Madison: The Great Collaboration (1950), discusses Madison's views on selected topics. On the elections of 1808 and 1812 see Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., ed., History of American Presidential Elections, vol. 1 (1971). □

Madison, James

WORKS BY MADISON

SUPPLEMENTARY BIBLIOGRAPHY

James Madison (1751–1836), fourth president of the United States, from 1809 to 1817, was the principal framer of the constitution of 1787. It was Madison who made the first preliminary move toward the drafting of the constitution by sponsoring the Annapolis Convention of 1786. The constitution embodied his conviction that liberty and the rights of property could best be harmonized and secured in a federal republic, with powers divided between subordinate states and a supreme federal government, each with internal checks and balances to prevent the rise of arbitrary power. According to Madison, republican government required that representatives be elected directly (or, perhaps, in one house, indirectly) by the great body of the people; otherwise the republic would degenerate into an aristocracy or an oligarchy. Government so organized, he believed (relying to some extent on Hume), would be progressively safer to liberty and property as the territorial area was enlarged, since diversity of regional interests and of population would prevent any national majority—whether moved by a common property interest, by political or religious passion, or swayed by an ambitious leader—from gaining power and oppressing the minority. He believed that the acquisition and protection of property is the ruling force in political faction and that the need to protect liberty and restrain power is a pressing one. These concepts, which he presented to the Philadelphia Convention of 1787, persuaded delegates fearful of the excesses of democracy to place their trust in democratic self-government. His voluminous notes of debates furnish the principal record of the convention.

In Congress Madison introduced the first ten amendments to the constitution, designed to enlarge its libertarian provisions into a bill of rights. In presenting these amendments he placed heaviest emphasis on freedom of religion, speech, and press. The religious guarantee was based on his modification of the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights, which discarded “toleration” and affirmed absolute rights of conscience, and on his successful “Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments” (1785) for support of teachers of religion; such assessments, he asserted, were tantamount to an establishment of religion. His expectation that “independent tribunals of justice” would form “an impenetrable bulwark” against every encroachment on constitutional liberties was dashed by the enactment and savage enforcement of the Sedition Act of 1798. Consequently he wrote the Virginia Resolutions of 1798, which asserted the right of the states, in case of a deliberate and dangerous violation of the federal compact, to interpose collectively “for arresting the progress of the evil.” Widespread interpretation of this as an assertion of the right to nullify acts of Congress led to his “Report on the Resolutions” (1799–1800), likewise adopted by the Virginia legislature, which defined interposition as an exertion of influence within the terms of the constitution but denied interposition any judicial force. The “Report” was notable for its assertion that freedom of the press exempted the press from punishment for licentiousness and its denial that the federal government had power to punish crimes under the common law of England.

In the famous Federalist No. 10, Madison systematized his earlier discussions of political faction. By that term he did not refer to political parties of the modern type but to the united activities of a majority or minority of the people “actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community” (Hamilton, Madison & Jay [1787–1788] 1961, p. 57). The unsteadiness and injustice of state governments, resulting from a factious spirit, had led to the breakdown of public trust and increasing alarm for private rights. The latent causes of faction, he believed, lie in the nature of man, especially men’s varying capacities for acquiring property and its consequent unequal distribution. Liberty feeds faction, but limiting liberty is a greater evil than faction. The remedy, therefore, lies in controlling the effects of passion through checks and divisions of governments.

Madison had a deterministic view of human conduct and was essentially a pragmatist, committed to no particular school of political thought but intensely devoted to preserving the Union, maintaining a broadly based republican government, and protecting human rights. In the furtherance of national policy, his tendency was to rely upon coercive measures. In the first Congress, he sponsored a moderate protective tariff (though generally preferring free trade), advocated counter-discrimination against British navigation acts injurious to American shipping, and worked unofficially to help repel senatorial encroachments on the president’s powers. Madison and Hamilton were equally committed to full payment of depreciated Revolutionary War claims, but Madison resisted Hamilton’s policy of full payment to speculators who purchased claims, urging that a share should go to the original holders, mostly impoverished veterans. This initiated the political alignment that developed into Hamiltonian federalism and Jeffersonian democracy. Hamilton’s sweeping interpretation of the power to spend for the general welfare likewise prevailed over Madison’s attempt to limit spending to subjects covered by the other enumerated powers—a view which did not prevent him, as president, from inaugurating government distribution of smallpox vaccine.

Jay’s 1794 treaty with England blocked Madison’s counterdiscrimination policy, but maritime restrictions continued and the Napoleonic Wars provoked wholesale seizures of American ships by both belligerents. In striking contrast with President Jefferson’s defensive shipping embargo, Madison in his first month as president made identical offers to England and France: that if the power addressed would cease its aggressions against American commerce, and the other continued them, he would ask Congress to declare war against the continuing offender. Without knowing of these offers, Congress in effect gave them legal force by the Macon Bill No. 2 of 1810, leading to the War of 1812 with England.

Except during his student days at Princeton and the major portion of his years in public office, Madison spent his entire life on his extensive estate, Montpelier, in the Virginia Piedmont. He pioneered in modern scientific agriculture and warned of the future dangers from world-wide overpopulation and man’s upsetting of the balance of nature. although strongly opposed to slavery, he lived by its fruits. The apparent happiness of his slaves, he told Harriet Martineau, was an illusion, concealing the degradation inherent in the institution. Believing that white Americans would permanently deny rights to which freedmen were entitled, he advocated the freeing of all slaves through government purchase—to be financed by western land sales—and voluntary resettlement in Liberia and other separate communities. The final years of his life were devoted to his work as rector of the University of Virginia and to preparing polemical articles combating South Carolina’s nullification doctrine.

Irving Brant

[See alsoRepresentation, article onrepresentational systems; and the biographies ofHamiltonandJefferson.]

WORKS BY MADISON

(1751–1836) 1962- Papers. Edited by William T. Hutchinson and William M. E. Rachal. Univ. of Chicago Press. → The first of a projected series of volumes.

(1769–1836) 1900–1910 The Writings of James Madison, Comprising His Public Papers and His Private Correspondence, … 9 vols. Edited by Gaillard Hunt. New York: Putnam.

(1785) 1904 Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments. Pages 183–191 in James Madison, The Writings of James Madison, Comprising His Public Papers and His Private Correspondence, … Volume 2: 1783–1787. New York: Putnam.

(1787–1788) 1961 Hamilton, Alexander; Madison, James; and Jay, JohnThe Federalist. Edited with introduction and notes by Jacob E. Cooke. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan Univ. Press. → See also the 1961 John Harvard Library edition, under the editorship of Benjamin F. Wright and Irving Brant, for assignment of authorship.

(1789) 1904 June 8: Amendments to the Constitution. Pages 370–389 in James Madison, The Writings of James Madison, Comprising His Public Papers and His Private Correspondence, … Volume 5: 1787–1790. New York: Putnam.

(1799–1800) 1906 Report on the Resolutions. Pages 341–406 in James Madison, The Writings of James Madison, Comprising His Public Papers and His Private Correspondence, … Volume 6: 1790–1802. New York: Putnam.

1966 Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787. With an introduction by Adrienne Koch. Athens: Ohio Univ. Press.

SUPPLEMENTARY BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brant, Irving 1941–1961 James Madison. 6 vols. Indianapolis, Ind.: Bobbs-Merrill. → Volume 1: The Virginia Revolutionist. Volume 2: The Nationalist:1780–1787. Volume 3: Father of the Constitution: 1787–1800. Volume 4: Secretary of State: 1800–1809. Volume 5: The President: 1809–1812. Volume 6: Commander in Chief: 1812–1836.

Brant, Irving 1961 Settling the Authorship of The Federalist. American Historical Review 67:71-75.

Burns, Edward M. 1938 James Madison: Philosopher of the Constitution. Studies in History, Vol. 1. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers Univ. Press.

Mosteller, Frederick; and Wallace, David L. 1963 Inference in an Authorship Problem: A Comparative Study of Discrimination Methods Applied to the Authorship of the Disputed Federalist Papers. Journal of the American Statistical Association 58:275–309.

U.S. Constitutional Convention, 1787 (1911) 1937 The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787. 4 vols., rev. ed. Edited by Max Farrand. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press.

Madison, James 1751-1836

CHAMPION OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

FATHER OF THE CONSTITUTION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

James Madison was born in King George County, Virginia, in March 1751 and died at “Montpelier,” his country estate, in June 1836. The fourth president of the United States, Madison was one of early America’s most significant contributors to the developing social sciences, especially through his political and constitutional thought and writings.

Madison was born into a prominent Virginia family, the first son of James Madison Sr. and Nelly Conway. Madison’s education began in King and Queen County, Virginia, where he was taught by Donald Robertson, a Scottish teacher who ran a school there. His education continued under the Reverend Thomas Martin, a private tutor who was a graduate of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), which Madison himself later attended, graduating in 1771. At Princeton, Madison was influenced in lasting ways by the college president, John Witherspoon (1723–1794), who had come to America in 1768 partly through the efforts of Benjamin Rush (1746–1813), who at the time was a young American medical student studying in Edinburgh. Madison stayed on at Princeton after the completion of his undergraduate degree to study with Witherspoon more closely. As his correspondence shows, by the time he left college Madison was clearly well acquainted with the major thinkers of Western political thought, including Plato (c. 428–347 BCE), Aristotle (384–322 BCE), Huigh de Groot (1583–1645), Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), and John Locke (1632–1704), as well as the works of the Scottish Enlightenment, including David Hume’s multivolume History of England (1754–1762). Madison also came away from Princeton—as did many of his classmates—a fiery supporter of the building Revolutionary cause and with a desire to promote religious freedom.

CHAMPION OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

From at least the early 1770s Madison was known to have championed religious freedom in his home colony of Virginia, a subject to which in 1785 he contributed “A Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments.” There, Madison wrote:

Torrents of blood have been spilt in the old world, by the vain attempts of the secular arm, to extinguish Religious discord, by proscribing all difference in Religious opinion. Time has at length revealed the true remedy. Every relaxation of narrow and rigorous policy, wherever it has been tried, has been found to assuage the disease. The American Theatre has exhibited proofs that equal and compleat liberty, if it does not wholly eradicate it, sufficiently destroys its malignant influence on the health and prosperity of the State. (Hutchinson 1956, pp. 302–303)

FATHER OF THE CONSTITUTION

While Madison is remembered in the early twenty-first century as a champion of religious freedom and for his support of the separation of church and state, he is even better remembered for his instrumental part in the deliberations at the Constitutional Convention held at the statehouse in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787. That convention resulted in the drafting of the U.S. Constitution, a document that showed Madison’s imprint at many key points. It is for this that he is remembered as the “Father of the Constitution.” Part of that legacy was the “three-fifths” compromise, whereby, for the purposes of taxation and representation, five blacks were considered equivalent to three whites. Like Thomas Jefferson and others of their generation, the slaveholding Madison was not able to reconcile—even in his own mind—the political realities of slavery in eighteenth-century America with the Enlightenment principles of freedom and liberty.

It is also on related constitutional issues that Madison is best known as a social science writer. Madison (with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay) was one of the three authors who under the pen name of Publius composed the Federalist, a collection of eighty-five essays first published in 1787 in New York newspapers. It was written with an eye to assuring ratification of the Constitution, and Madison is thought to have written twenty-nine of the Federalist essays. His most famous papers were Federalist No. 51, No. 39, and No. 10, an essay on the causes, nature, and remedies for the problem of factions. In that paper Madison merged his intimate knowledge of Scottish Enlightenment texts, including Hume’s History of England, with his personal experiences of American social and political developments. Madison countered Charles-Louis de Secondat (Montesquiéu, 1689–1755) and other European and American political theorists, who argued in a civic republican vein that republican government could not long exist in a large country such as the United States. Madison wrote:

Extend the sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with each other. (Carey and McClellan 2001, p. 48)

Madison was also one of the principal framers of the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which went into effect in 1791.

SEE ALSO American Revolution; Aristotle; Bill of Rights, U.S.; Church and State; Constitution, U.S.; Federalism; Freedom; Hobbes, Thomas; Hume, David; Locke, John; Plato; Presidency, The; Slavery; Smith, Adam

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Banning, Lance. 1995. The Sacred Fire of Liberty: James Madison and the Founding of the Federal Republic. Ithaca, NY: Cornell.

Carey, George W., and James McClellan, eds. 2001. The Federalist, by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison. Gideon ed. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund.

Hutchinson, William T., et al., eds. 1962. The Papers of James Madison. Vol. 8. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Ketcham, Ralph Louis. 1971. James Madison: A Biography. New York: Macmillan.

Rakove, Jack N. 2002. James Madison and the Creation of the American Republic. Ed. Oscar Handlin, 2nd ed. New York: Longman.

Mark G. Spencer

Madison, James (1751–1836) US Democratic Republican statesman, 4th President of the USA (1809–17). Before taking office, he played a leading part in drawing up the US Constitution (1787) and proposed the Bill of Rights (1791). His presidency saw the US emerge successfully from the War of 1812 against Britain.