Web Quotableonline.com Frasescelebres.org Greatbookscollection.org

James Madison (March 16, 1751 – June 28,
1836) was the fourth (1809–1817) President
of the United States|President of the United
States. He was co-author, with John Jay and
Alexander Hamilton, of the Federalist Papers, and
is traditionally regarded as the List of people
known as the father or mother of something|Father
of the United States Constitution.

==Biography==
Madison was born in King George County, Virginia.
His parents Colonel James Madison, Sr. (March 27,
1723 – February 27, 1801) and Eleanor Rose
"Nellie" Conway (January 9, 1731 – February
11, 1829) were the prosperous owners of the
tobacco plantation in Orange County, Virginia
where Madison spent most of his childhood years.
In 1769, he left the plantation to attend
Princeton University (it was called the College of
New Jersey at the time), finishing its four-year
course in two years, but exhausting himself from
overwork in the process. When he regained his
health, he became a protegé of Thomas Jefferson.
In this capacity he became a prominent figure in
Virginia state politics, helping to draft their
declaration of religious freedom and persuading
Virginia to give their northwestern territories
(consisting of most of modern-day Ohio, Kentucky
and Tennessee) to the Continental Congress.

==Constitutional Convention==
In the 1780s, Madison helped convince the
political leaders of the time to call for a
convention to replace the ineffective Articles of
Confederation. Madison was the best prepared
delegate at the History of the United States
Constitution#Constitutional
Convention|Constitutional Convention, and his
overall influence at Philadelphia in 1787 has led
some historians to call him the "Father of the
Constitution." Madison called for a strong central
government with a bicameral legislature. When the
issue arose of how states would be represented in
the new Congress, Madison was one of the strongest
advocates of state representation depending on
population.  His notes from the Constitutional
Convention are the best documentary evidence we
have as to the thinking of what Thomas Jefferson
(who was in France at the time) called an
"assembly of demi-gods." 

==Federalist Papers==
To support Constitutional ratification in New York
State, Madison put aside his doubts to work with
Alexander Hamilton and John Jay to write the
Federalist Papers, which are considered the
definitive contemporary commentary on the United
States Constitution. Madison's arguments were
powerfully influenced by the political thought of
Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu.

Madison wrote thirty of the eighty-five essays
that comprise the Federalist Papers, including
perhaps the two most famous, Federalist No. 10 and
Federalist No. 51. His most famous passage comes
in No. 51:

:"If men were angels, no government would be
necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither
external nor internal controls on government would
be necessary. In forming a government which is to
be administered by men over men, the great
difficulty lies in this: you must first enable
government to control the governed; and in the
next place oblige it to control itself."

In 1801, in his first Inaugural Address, Thomas
Jefferson would express a similar sentiment:
:"Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted
with the government of himself. Can he, then, be
trusted with the government of others? Or have we
found angels in the forms of kings to govern him?
Let history answer this question."

==Congressional years==
When the Constitution was ratified, Madison was
elected to the United States House of
Representatives from his home state of Virginia
and served from the First United States
Congress|First Congress through the Fourth United
States Congress|Fourth Congress, and was a member
of the United States Democratic-Republican
Party|Democratic-Republican Party during his final
term in the House. In 1789, he successfully
offered a package of twelve proposed amendments to
the Constitution, the final ten of which became
what is collectively known as the United States
Bill of Rights|Bill of Rights by December 15,
1791, based upon earlier work by George Mason. Of
the first two proposals that were not ratified in
1791, the second one tardily became the
Twenty-seventh Amendment to the United States
Constitution|27th Amendment more than 200 years
later in 1992.

The chief characteristic of Madison's time in
Congress was his desire to limit the power of the
federal government.  One incident that
demonstrates this desire is the debate over the
First Bank of the United States|Bank of the United
States, in which Madison and other followers of
Thomas Jefferson denied that the federal
government had the power to form its own bank.

During Madison's time in Congress, the debate over
the power of the federal government versus that of
the states led to the formation of the first
United States political parties.  Madison was
instrumental in the creation of the United States
Democratic-Republican Party|Democratic-Republican
party, whose members supported Jefferson and
believed strongly in limiting centralized power. 
Opposed to the Democratic-Republicans was the 
United States Federalist Party|Federalist party,
whose members followed Hamilton and believed in a
strong central government. 

In 1797 Madison left Congress; in 1801 he became
Jefferson's Secretary of State.

==Presidential years==
In the U.S. presidential election, 1808|election
of 1808, Madison ran for president in his own
right, and won, largely on the strength of his
abilities in foreign affairs at a time when
United_Kingdom_of_Great_Britain_and_Ireland|United
Kingdom (Britain) and France were both on the edge
of war with the United States. Both countries
blockaded the ports of the other, preventing
commerce with either. In 1810, a bill was passed
that would break off relations with any nation
that would not remove the blockade: France did,
and Britain did not.

In the ensuing War of 1812, the British won
numerous victories, including a temporary Burning
of Washington|occupation of Washington, D.C.,
forcing Madison to flee the city. The British also
armed American Indians in the West, most notably
followers of Tecumseh. Neither side was terribly
enthusiastic about the war, however: the British
had little to gain, and in the United States, New
England Federalist Party (United
States)|Federalists Hartford Convention|threatened
secession if the war was not ended. In 1814, the
Treaty of Ghent ended the war. The Battle of New
Orleans, in which Andrew Jackson distinguished
himself, was fought 15 days after the treaty was
signed — the news not reaching Louisiana in
time from Belgium.  The major lasting effect for
the political face of the country was the end of
the Federalist Party, who were considered traitors
when they opposed the war.

In his last act before leaving office, Madison
vetoed a bill for "internal improvements,"
including roads, bridges, and canals:

:"Having considered the bill...I am constrained by
the insuperable difficulty I feel in reconciling
this bill with the Constitution of the United
States...The legislative powers vested in Congress
are specified...in the...Constitution, and it does
not appear that the power proposed to be exercised
by the bill is among the enumerated powers..."
http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/981.html

Madison rejected the view of Congress that the
General Welfare Clause justified the bill,
stating:

:"Such a view of the Constitution would have the
effect of giving to Congress a general power of
legislation instead of the defined and limited one
hitherto understood to belong to them, the terms
'common defense and general welfare' embracing
every object and act within the purview of a
legislative trust."

Despite Madison's "last stand," so-called Pork
barrel|pork-barrel spending would soon become
commonplace in the United States.

It should be noted that although Madison would
support internal improvement schemes only through
constitutional amendment, he urged a variety of
measures that he felt were "best executed under
the national authority," including federal support
for roads and canals that would "bind more closely
together the various parts of our extended
confederacy."

At 5 feet, 4 inches in height (163 cm) and 100
pounds (45 kg) in weight, Madison was the nation's
shortest president and frequently ill. In 1794,
Madison married Dolley Madison|Dolley Payne Todd,
who cut as attractive and vivacious a figure as he
did a sickly and antisocial one. It was Dolley who
is largely credited with inventing the role of
"First Lady of the United States|First Lady" as
political ally to the president.


=== Cabinet ===
{| cellpadding="1" cellspacing="4"
style="margin:3px; border:3px solid #000000;"
align="left"
!bgcolor="#000000" colspan="3"|
|-
|align="left"|OFFICE||align="left"|NAME||align="le
ft"|TERM
|-
!bgcolor="#000000" colspan="3"|
|-
|align="left"|President of the United
States|President||align="left" |James
Madison||align="left"|1809–1817
|-
|align="left"|Vice President of the United
States|Vice President||align="left"|George Clinton
(politician)|George
Clinton||align="left"|1809–1812
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|Elbridge
Gerry||align="left"|1813–1814
|-
!bgcolor="#000000" colspan="3"|
|-
|align="left"|United States Secretary of
State|Secretary of State||align="left"|Robert
Smith (U.S. politician)|Robert
Smith||align="left"|1809–1811
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|James
Monroe||align="left"|1811–1814
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|James
Monroe||align="left"|1815–1817
|-
|align="left"|United States Secretary of the
Treasury|Secretary of the
Treasury||align="left"|Albert
Gallatin||align="left"|1809–1814
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|George
Campbell||align="left"|1814
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|Alexander J.
Dallas||align="left"|1814–1816
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|William
Crawford||align="left"|1816–1817
|-
|align="left"|United States Secretary of
War|Secretary of War||align="left"|William
Eustis||align="left"|1809–1812
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|John Armstrong,
Jr.||align="left"|1813
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|James
Monroe||align="left"|1814–1815
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|William
Crawford||align="left"|1815–1816
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|George Graham
(soldier)|George Graham (ad
interim)||align="left"|1816–1817
|-
|align="left"|Attorney General of the United
States|Attorney General||align="left"|Caesar A.
Rodney||align="left"|1809–1811
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|William
Pinkney||align="left"|1811–1814
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|Richard
Rush||align="left"|1814–1817
|-
|align="left"|Postmaster General of the United
States|Postmaster General||align="left"|Gideon
Granger||align="left"|1809–1814
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|Return
Meigs||align="left"|1814–1817
|-
|align="left"|United States Secretary of the
Navy|Secretary of the Navy||align="left"|Paul
Hamilton||align="left"|1809–1813
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|William Jones
(statesman)|William
Jones||align="left"|1813–1814
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|Benjamin
Crowninshield||align="left"|1815–1817
|}



=== Supreme Court Appointments ===
Madison appointed the following Justices to the
Supreme Court of the United States:

* Gabriel Duvall — 1811
* Joseph Story — 1812

=== States Admitted to the Union ===
* Louisiana – April 30, 1812
* Indiana – December 11, 1816

==Later Life==

After leaving office, Madison retired to
Montpelier (James Madison)|Montpelier, his farm in
Virginia.  He was briefly the rector of
Jefferson's University of Virginia, but spent most
of his days farming.  He died on June 28, 1836 of
rheumatism and heart failure.

Madison was the first president of the American
Colonization Society, which bought passage for
free black Americans to the Society's colony in
west Africa, Liberia. By the terms of his will
http://www.jamesmadisonmus.org/resources/will.htm,
$2000 was bequeathed to the ACS through its agent
Rev. Dr. Ralph Randolph Gurley.

Madison's portrait was on the U.S.
Large_bills|$5000 bill.  There were about twenty
different varieties of $5000 bills issued between
1861 and 1946, and all but three had James
Madison. Madison also appears on the $200 Series
EE Savings Bond.



==Quotations==
*"Resolved, That the General Assembly of Virginia,
doth unequivocally express a firm resolution to
maintain and defend the Constitution of the United
States, and the Constitution of this State,
against every aggression either foreign or
domestic ... That this Assembly doth explicitly
and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers
of the federal government, as resulting from the
compact, to which the states are parties; as
limited by the plain sense and intention of the
instrument constituting the compact; as no further
valid than they are authorized by the grants
enumerated in that compact; and that in case of
deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of
other powers, not granted by the said compact, the
states who are parties thereto, have the right,
and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting
the progress of the evil, and for maintaining
within their respective limits, the authorities,
rights and liberties appertaining to them."

*"...The government of the United States is a
definite government, confined to specified
objects. It is not like the state governments,
whose powers are more general. Charity is no part
of the legislative duty of the government."

*"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that
article of the Constitution which granted a right
to Congress of expending, on objects of
benevolence, the money of their constituents."
—1794 (Pertaining to Congress' appropriation
$15,000 for relief of French refugees)

*"A standing military force, with an overgrown
Executive will not long be safe companions to
liberty. The means of defence agst. foreign
danger, have been always the instruments of
tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a
standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt
was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies
kept up under the pretext of defending, have
enslaved the people." —Constitutional
Convention June 29, 1787

*"Besides the danger of a direct mixture of
religion and civil government, there is an evil
which ought to be guarded against in the
indefinite accumulation of property from the
capacity of holding it in perpetuity by
ecclesiastical corporations. The establishment of
the chaplainship in Congress is a palpable
violation of equal rights as well as of
Constitutional principles. The danger of silent
accumulations and encroachments by ecclesiastical
bodies has not sufficiently engaged attention in
the U.S." —being outvoted in the bill to
establish the office of Congressional Chaplain,
from the "Detached Memoranda,"

*"Wherever the real power in a Government lies,
there is the danger of oppression. In our
Governments, the real power lies in the majority
of the Community, and the invasion of private
rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from the
acts of Government contrary to the sense of its
constituents, but from acts in which the
Government is the mere instrument of the major
number of the constituents." —Letter to
Thomas Jefferson, October 17, 1788

== Related articles ==
* U.S. presidential election, 1808
* U.S. presidential election, 1812
* List of places named for James Madison
* List of U.S. Presidential religious affiliations

== Writings ==
* James Madison: Writings by James Madison (1999
in literature|1999, ISBN 1883011663)

== External links ==

commons|James Madison
*http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/collections/madison_p
apers/ The James Madison Papers, 1723-1836 from
the Manuscript Division at the Library of
Congress, approximately 12,000 items captured in
some 72,000 digital images.
*http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/presiden/madisp
ap.htm The Papers of James Madison from the Avalon
Project
*http://Madison.thefreelibrary.com/ James
Madison's brief biography
*http://www.jamesmadisonmus.org/resources/will.htm
Madison's last will and testament, 1835
*http://www.jmu.edu/madison/family/ A history of
the Madison family since the 17th century
*http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/jm4.
html Official White House page for James Madison

start box
succession box| title=U.S. At-Large Congressman
from Virginia| before=(none)| after=(district
system)| years=1789-1791
succession box| title=U.S. Congressman for the 5th
District of Virginia| before=(at-large system)|
after=George Hancock| years=1791-1793
succession box| title=U.S. Congressman for the
15th District of Virginia| before=(none)|
after=(none)| years=1793-1797
succession box| title=United States Secretary of
State| before=John Marshall| after=Robert Smith
(U.S. politician)|Robert Smith| years=May 2, 1801
– March 4, 1809
succession box| title=Democratic-Republican Party
(United States)|Republican Party President of the
United States|Presidential candidate|
before=Thomas Jefferson | after=James Monroe |
years=U.S. presidential election, 1808|1808 (won),
U.S. presidential election, 1812|1812 (won)
succession box| title=President of the United
States| before=Thomas Jefferson| after=James
Monroe| years=March 4, 1809 – March 4, 1817
end box

start box
USpresidents | before=Thomas Jefferson|Jefferson |
after=James Monroe|Monroe| years=1809–1817
end box

USSecState