James Madison

Biography

James Madison was born in Virginia in 1751, the oldest of ten children of wealthy planter and enslaver James Madison Sr and his wife Nelly. He received his early education from his mother, from tutors and from a private academy. He proved to be an excellent scholar despite being a frail and often sickly boy. As a teenager he was sent not to the College of William and Mary but to the College of New Jersey [later Princeton University] where he was thought to be safer from infectious diseases than in Williamsburg. Here he studied Latin, Greek, and theology, read the Enlightenment philosophers, and took classes in speech designed to hone his debate skills. Madison was high strung and inclined to hypochondria, and suffered episodes of nervous exhaustion yet he managed to complete the required three year course of study in two years. He would remain at the College for an additional year to study Hebrew and political philosophy in anticipation of either a career as a clergyman or as a lawyer. In the end, he was neither.

In 1772, Madison returned to the family home at Montpelier. Although he began to study the law after his return, he found that, while he loved reading legal texts, he could not envision himself as a practicing attorney. By 1775, as the colonies moved closer to a break with Britain, Madison at last found his calling: politics. That year he joined the Orange County Committee of Safety and the following year he attended the Virginia convention called to draft a state constitution. Although he was not a member of the Continental Congress when it declared independence, no one doubted his support for the patriotic cause.

Madison’s poor health excused him from military service once the war got underway. Instead, he continued to make his contributions to victory in the political arena. Serving in the Congress during the 1780-83 terms, he observed that the Confederation had no power to ensure that the states provided the supplies needed to win the war. To remedy this problem, he proposed that the Articles be amended to allow Congress to raise revenue through tariffs on imports. Both Alexander Hamilton and General Washington wholeheartedly supported this proposal, but it failed to win the required approval of all thirteen states. This lesson in the weakness of the Articles led him to help organize the Mount Vernon Conference in 1785 and to attend the Annapolis Convention in 1786, both of which were early steps in moving the country to a judgment that the Articles of Confederation government was inadequate.

When the call went out for the Constitutional Convention, Madison was among Virginia’s delegates. Eager to see changes made in the country’s governance, Madison arrived early to Philadelphia and waited impatiently for the sessions to begin. His strengths as a political strategist and his deep understanding of the Articles’ flaw made Madison one of the premier figures at the convention. Madison knew that arriving with a carefully thought out and articulated plan could set the agenda for the delegates’ debates. Thus he brought with him such a plan. His proposal for a new political framework for the country was couched in terms familiar to the delegates; his Virginia Plan proposed three branches of government similar to the structure of the British government, the structures of most colonial governments, and of those recently created by most of the states. The government he proposed would have the powers sorely missing in the Articles: among them, the power to tax, the power to regulate commerce, and the power to create a uniform American currency. In short, Madison sought the “energetic government” favored by his fellow nationalists.

Madison was savvy enough to realize that, as “little Jemmy Madison,” he did not cut an imposing figure. Nor was he a great orator, able to persuade his audience easily. Although he knew what needed to be done, he also knew someone else ought to suggest it to the convention. Thus the tall, handsome, and well spoken Edmund Randolph was chosen to present the Virginia Plan.

Although, over the next four months, the Virginia Plan underwent many changes, it nevertheless did set the agenda for the debates. And during those months of argument, debate, and compromise Madison’s voice was one of the three most frequently heard. Madison addressed the Convention more than 150 times, third only to Pennsylvania’s Gouverneur Morris and James Wilson. Madison also served on numerous committees including the critical – though humorously named—Committee on Postponed Matters that brought the electoral college into being, and on the Committee of Style. Madison bowed to the great stylist Gouverneur Morris to draft the constitution and to write the powerful preamble that introduced the goals of the proposed new government.

William Pierce recognized both Madison’s talents and his shortcomings. “Every Person seems to acknowledge his greatness,” Pierce wrote. “He blends together the profound politician with the Scholar.” But, Pierce added, “he cannot be called an Orator,” even though he was “a most agreeable, eloquent, and convincing Speaker.”

Madison would enjoy the last word on the Convention. During its four months he took copious notes, recording what was said and done by the delegates despite the pledge everyone had taken not to keep such a record. Madison did not live to see his notes published but they are recognized today as the best history of the Convention, far more valuable to historians than the official record kept by the Convention secretary, Major William Jackson.

When the Convention ended, the battle for ratification of the Constitution began. Madison joined with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay to produce the strongest pro-Constitution arguments in their Federalist Papers. Written to persuade New York’s convention to support ratification, these essays articulated both the political philosophy behind the Constitution and the clearest explanation of its many elements. The Federalist Papers provided supporters of ratification in many states with the talking points they needed to overwhelm their opponents. In the key state of Virginia, Madison led the Federalists forces. He was pitted against Patrick Henry, Governor of the state, who was an ardent foe of this empowered new government. It was a blow to Henry, and to the anti-federalist movement writ large, when the convention finally endorsed the Constitution.

In an act of vengeance, Henry sabotaged Madison’s bid for a seat in the first US Senate. Instead, Madison had to run for a seat in the House. Soon after he was sworn in he proposed the adoption of a Bill of Rights. To his surprise the Federalist majority viewed his proposal as a nuisance that would interfere with the many important issues that had to be addressed. At the same time, the Anti-Federalists in the House objected to the proposed amendments Madison proposed because they did not include any curtailment of the Federal Government’s powers. They demanded amendments that would restore state supremacy. Madison persisted in the face of all opposition and mockery and by 1791, ten amendments ensuring many of the rights Americans cherish today were added to the Constitution.

At the Constitutional Convention, Madison and Hamilton had functioned as a team devoted to the creation of an empowered national government. But Hamilton’s economic policies during Washington’s administration were a wedge that divided the two men. Madison saw in Hamilton’s Report on Public Credit, in his assumption of state revolutionary war debts, and in his proposal of a Bank of the US, the rise of a trade and commerce- based economy that would displace southern, and particularly Virginian, agriculture based dominance. Madison thus abandoned his earlier nationalism and joined with Thomas Jefferson to form an opposition party committed to states’ rights. In 1798 he penned the Virginia Resolutions which, with Jefferson’s Kentucky Resolutions, attacked the Alien and Sedition Acts and dealt a death blow to Federalist control of the federal government. Jefferson defeated John Adams in the presidential race of 1800 and Madison succeeded Jefferson in 1809 as the country’s chief executive. The election of James Monroe after Madison’s second term completed what is commonly called the Virginia dynasty.

During Madison’s administration tensions were revived between the US and Britain. Both Britain and France were challenging the US dream of free trade, but it was Britain who provoked resentment by boarding American vessels and removing sailors they claimed were British citizens. There was considerable truth to this claim, but many Americans viewed it as an insult to their country’s sovereignty. In 1812 Madison declared war on Britain, despite the fact that his country was ill-equipped to wage or win the conflict. Federalist opponents of the war demeaned it as “Mr Madison’s War” but supporters considered it a second war of independence. In 1814 the two countries signed a treaty that gave neither combatant any advantages. However, two weeks after the treaty was signed Andrew Jackson won an impressive victory over British troops in New Orleans and this was lauded by Americans as proof that they had won the war. The surge of nationalism that followed ended any hope of a return to power for the Federalists.

When his second term ended Madison retired from national politics. He busied himself with the operation of the Montpelier plantation and devoted long hours to editing his journal of the Constitutional Convention. He kept a hand in local politics, serving as co-chair of the Virginia’s constitutional convention in 1829-1830 and writing newspaper articles defending Monroe’s beleaguered administration. And though he was himself a slave owner, he now recognized that the emerging sectional tension between North and South threatened the Union he had helped create. One of his solutions was the deportation and resettlement of African Americans to Africa.

Despite his many real and imagined illnesses, Madison lived to be 85. He died in 1836, survived by his vivacious and politically astute wife, Dolley, and by his stepson. Although James Madison has been one of his father’s most effective critics, John Quincy Adams authored a eulogy for him. In that elegant eulogy Adams commemorated Madison’s remarkable career and praised his contributions to the formation of the US.