Madison, James

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MADISON, JAMES

James Madison was born 16 March 1751 in Port Conway, Virginia, the first child of James and Nelly Conway Madison. His father owned a large plantation in Orange County, Virginia, and it was there at Montpelier that Madison grew up. At the age of eleven he went to boarding school and at sixteen returned home to continue his studies with a tutor. Madison entered the College of New Jersey at Princeton in 1769. He completed the fouryear course in two years, graduating in 1771, and spent the following year in graduate studies in the classics, reading Greek and Latin writers, and in natural and moral philosophy, in which modern thinkers like Michel de Montaigne, John Locke, and David Hume figured prominently.

Back home at Montpelier, Madison passed through a period of career indecision that coincided with the political turmoil leading up to the American Revolution. He played a prominent role in local politics as a member of the Orange County Committee of Safety (1774) and as colonel of the county militia (1775) and was elected a member of the Virginia Convention of 1776. At the convention Madison made a significant contribution by inserting language in the state constitution that upheld the free exercise of religion as a right and not a privilege. Defeated for election to the newly created General Assembly in 1777, Madison was selected as a member of the Council of State, an executive body that advised the governor. Madison served through 1779 under the governorships of Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson.

In December 1779 Madison was elected to represent Virginia in the Continental Congress, where he served until 1783. Madison took his duties seriously, participating vigorously in debates, immersing himself in committee work, and taking copious notes of the proceedings. These notes, published in the modern edition of the Papers of James Madison, are a valuable source for the proceedings of Congress. Madison, while upholding the interests of Virginia, was among those members who fought for expanded powers for the Confederation Congress to support the Continental Army, including a federal government tax on imports. Although this measure failed, Madison left Congress with a reputation for intelligence, hard work, and integrity.

From 1784 to 1786 Madison served in the Virginia House of Delegates, where he was instrumental in gaining passage of a portion of Jefferson's law reform measures, including the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. He also helped defeat an attempt by Henry to provide for state support of religious teachers, in the process formulating a Memorial and Remonstrance (1785) that remains a ringing statement

of the essential value of the separation of church and state.

In 1786 Madison attended a convention at Annapolis, Maryland, to discuss interstate trade issues. The convention called for a general convention of delegates from all the states to discuss measures to enhance the powers of the federal government. At home in Virginia Madison lobbied heavily for such a meeting and to compose a slate of distinguished Virginians to attend. He was instrumental in convincing George Washington that his presence was essential for the success of such a convention.

In the meantime, Madison undertook two research projects. The first involved reading widely in the history of ancient republics and confederacies and studying the reasons for their collapse. The second was an examination of the "Vices of the Political System of the U.S." Both projects yielded notes and memoranda that formed the basis for Madison's contributions to the Constitutional Convention.

In February 1787 Madison took his seat as a delegate in the Confederation Congress at New York. During the spring session Madison drafted the plan of a system of government that was adopted by the Virginia delegation to the Constitutional Convention as the Virginia Plan. The plan scrapped the Articles of Confederation and proposed a national government that operated directly on its citizens.

In May 1787 the Philadelphia Convention quickly adopted the Virginia Plan as the framework for discussion. Madison took a central role in the debates that followed and took detailed notes of the proceedings. Despite the defeat of two important parts of his plan—proportional representation in both houses of Congress and a federal veto over state laws—Madison's contribution to the U.S. Constitution was such as to earn him the title "Father of the Constitution."

Once more in Congress, Madison made sure the drafted constitution was sent to the states for ratification. He joined forces with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay to write a series of essays for a New York newspaper explaining and defending the new constitution. These eighty-five essays, of which Madison wrote twenty-nine, were subsequently published as The Federalist and have ever since been read as a guide to the constitutional thought of the founding generation.

In 1788 Madison returned home to attend the Virginia Ratifying Convention, where he successfully defended the draft constitution against the anti-Federalists led by Patrick Henry. Virginia became the tenth state to ratify. Blocked by Governor Henry from a seat in the U.S. Senate, Madison ran against James Monroe and won a seat in the House of Representatives.

In the First Federal Congress, Madison took a leading part as legislators created a revenue system, executive departments, and a federal court system. Madison also advised President Washington on matters of protocol and procedure and drafted a number of the president's speeches. Madison's most important contribution in this period was the drafting of a series of nineteen amendments to the Constitution, culled from more than two hundred suggested by the states, answering the most vociferous criticisms of the document. Madison insisted that Congress take up this issue, ensuring the debate that sent twelve amendments to the states for ratification. Ten were finally adopted to become the Bill of Rights.

Madison lost influence with the president as Washington turned to his newly appointed cabinet for advice. Perhaps the most powerful voice in the new administration belonged to Hamilton, the secretary of the Treasury, whose financial plans for the new Republic were distinctly at odds with those of Madison. The Virginian opposed Hamilton's policies on assumption of the states' Revolutionary War debt, on his plans to fully fund U.S. securities despite rampant speculation, and on Hamilton's pro-British trade slant. The divide between the two men only grew larger in subsequent Congresses as the full extent of Hamilton's financial system became apparent. Madison, along with Secretary of State Jefferson, considered the system, modeled on that of Great Britain, a betrayal of the original principles of the American Revolution and an attempt to subvert the intent of the framers of the Constitution. Their opposition laid the foundation for the first party system and divided the country into Jeffersonian-Republicans and Federalists.

The divide was further embittered by the European conflict that arose in the wake of the French Revolution. Madison and the Republicans expressed sympathy for France, which they felt was the legitimate heir of their own revolution, whereas Federalists recoiled at the violence and excesses there. Despite treaty ties with France, Washington issued a neutrality proclamation in 1793, which Madison considered unconstitutional. He attacked the proclamation in a series of essays signed "Helvidius," but to no avail. The tilt toward Great Britain continued with the negotiation and ratification of Jay's Treaty in 1794–1795, which brought an end to a number of conflicts at the price of significant concessions. Madison considered these concessions to be so humiliating that he tried to block House appropriations to implement the treaty. Once again his efforts failed. With the election of Federalist John Adams in 1796, Madison took his leave of the House of Representatives in March 1797.

In his Montpelier retirement, Madison responded to the Quasi-War with France and Adams's domestic policies. In 1798 the Virginia legislature accepted a number of his resolutions, with his authorship concealed, in response to the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts. The Virginia Resolutions called for the states to protest federal infringements on personal liberties. In 1799 he wrote two essays, also anonymous, for the newspapers: "Foreign Influence" examined British influence on the United States, and "Political Reflections" discussed France and the nature of republican government. In that same year he sought and won a seat in the state legislature, determined to defend the Virginia Resolutions from attacks by other states. His Report of 1800, adopted by the Virginia assembly, set forth the case for the unconstitutionality of the Alien and Sedition Acts and eloquently defended the right of free speech.

With Jefferson's election to the presidency in 1800, Madison became secretary of state, serving from 1801 to 1809. Madison's tenure was distinguished by the purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France, which effectively doubled the size of the United States. Madison's greatest trial was maintaining U.S. neutrality in the face of British and French depredations on American commerce. His meticulously researched book, An Examination of the British Doctrine, which Subjects to Capture a Neutral Trade, Not Open in Time of Peace (1806), demonstrating how Great Britain's maritime practice contravened international law, proved to no avail. The embargo enacted in 1807, employing Madison's favorite weapon, economic coercion, was an equal failure.

Elected president in 1808, Madison tried other economic measures to stop European depredations on U.S. commerce and seamen. None proved successful, and Madison undertook measures to prepare the country for war. In June 1812 he laid out the rationale for hostilities with Great Britain, and a declaration of war by Congress followed.

Madison was the first president to serve as commander in chief under the U.S. Constitution. The war effort was hampered by poor leadership at every level—national, state, and in the armed forces—and political opposition from the New England states. The administration's Canada strategy was a fiasco, and the British campaign in the Chesapeake, including the burning of Washington, D.C., was a humiliation. Only the single ship combats on the high seas and the naval victory at Lake Erie provided a modicum of success. The skill of the U.S. negotiators at Ghent and the victory at New Orleans provided a happy ending to what might have been a political disaster.

Upon leaving office, Madison returned to his Montpelier plantation, where he edited his public papers for posthumous publication and assisted Jefferson in the creation of the University of Virginia. He served as the university's second rector from 1826 to 1833. His last public appearance was at the 1829 Virginia Constitutional Convention.

bibliography

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

Brugger, Robert J., Mary A. Hackett, and David B. Mattern et al., eds. The Papers of James Madison, Secretary of State Series. 6 vols. to date. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1986–.

Hutchinson, William T., and William M. E. Rachal et al., eds. The Papers of James Madison. Vols. 11–17, Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1977–91.

Ketcham, Ralph. James Madison: A Biography. New York: Macmillan, 1971; Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1990.

McCoy, Drew R. The Last of the Fathers: James Madison and the Republican Legacy. Cambridge, U.K., and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

Rakove, Jack. James Madison and the Creation of the American Republic. Edited by Oscar Handlin. New York: Longman, 2002.

Rutland, Robert A., and J. C. A. Stagg et al., eds. The Papers of James Madison, Presidential Series. 5 vols. to date. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1984–.

Stagg, J. C. A. Mr. Madison's War: Politics, Diplomacy, and Warfare in the Early American Republic, 1783–1830. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983.

David B. Mattern

Encyclopedia of the New American Nation