JAMES MADISON
Biography
James Madison is perhaps best known to Americans as the father of the Consitution. This title was given him because of the leading part he played in framing the charter of government under which the American people have lived since 1789. Madison was only 36 years old when that work was completed, but he had been in public life for 11 years and was unsurpassed as a student of government.
Madison's Ideas on Government
After the United States won their independance from Britain in the Revoloutionary War, the essential problem facing the framers of the Constitution was to find some way to establish power and yet maintain liberty. This called for the republican form of government, in which the people are sovereign (supreme) but rule through elected representatives. Up to Madison's time most students of government had assumed that small republics were more virtuous than large ones. Madison observed that the opposite was true in America. Tyrannical majorities ruled the smallest states. In the larger ones, however, the greater diversity of interests prevented one faction, or interest group, from acquiring undue power.
So, Madison reasoned, let the United States have the republican form of government at all levels, with each state controlling its local affairs. Let a supreme federal government manage national affairs and interstate matters—those between the states. The larger such a federal republic became, the more liberty it could enjoy with safety, for the different interests of the various sections of the country would split the factions that might produce tyranny in a small republic.
Madison presented this idea to the delegates at Philadelphia. It overcame the fear many of them had of democracy, and the government of the United States was built on the basis of Madison's ideas. He then joined with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay in writing The Federalist papers, explaining the Constitution to the people in order to secure its ratification. Madison led the supporters of the Constitution at the Virginia ratifying convention. He was then elected to the House of Representatives in the 1st Congress of the United States.
The New Government
In Congress he proposed and took a leading part in the passage of the first 10 amendments to the Constitution. Madison is thus known both as father of the Constitution and as principal author of the Bill of Rights.
Madison served in Congress from 1789 to 1797, rising to leadership of the entire House of Representatives. Then, as political parties began to form, he became leader of those men (later called Democratic-Republicans) who wished the government to give special thought to the welfare of the common people. Opposed to this was the Federalist Party, led by Alexander Hamilton, who wanted to strengthen the new government by linking it with the interests of persons of wealth and power. Hamilton's party won in Congress.
Early in this contest Thomas Jefferson arrived home from France, where he had been American minister, and took over leadership of the Republicans. Madison became his foremost supporter. When Jefferson was elected president in 1801, Madison was appointed secretary of state. In this capacity Madison helped promote the purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France.
Meanwhile, in Europe the Napoleonic Wars were raging. Great Britain was impressing (forcing into service) seamen from American ships to man its Navy against France. Both Great Britain and France were seizing American ships and cargoes. Secretary Madison strongly upheld the right of a neutral country to trade with warring nations through unblockaded seaports. But all his protests were ignored. President Jefferson attempted to preserve peace by the Embargo Act, forbidding American ships to leave port. But this only resulted in violations of the act.
President
Thomas Jefferson's support helped Madison win election to the presidency in 1809. Madison's first action on becoming president was to inform Great Britain that if it would stop interfering with American commerce and France continued to seize American ships, he would ask Congress to declare war on France. At the same time a similar offer was made to France—to go to war against Great Britain if France would stop its seizures and Great Britain continued them. But both countries continued to seize American ships. In 1810 Congress authorized the President to cut off trade with either country if the other agreed to stop its oppressions. An agreement to do so by the French, though false, led to a commercial break with Great Britain in 1811 and to war in 1812.
The War of 1812
Congress, however, was more willing to declare war than to provide the means of fighting it. The War Department consisted of a secretary of war and eight clerks. The United States had virtually no army and only a small navy. While the little American Navy was winning brilliant triumphs at sea, the inexperienced soldiers met with defeat after defeat. Washington, D.C., itself was captured by the British. Part of the city, including the White House, was burned, and Madison was forced to flee with other members of the government.
Young army officers, however, were gaining experience, and so was the President. Newly disciplined American troops drove the Duke of Wellington's veterans from the field in successive battles. This change of fortune led to a satisfactory peace in the Treaty of Ghent in 1814.
All through the War of 1812 the Federalist Party of New England had opposed what they called “Mr. Madison's war.” Nevertheless, Madison had refused to place any restraints on speech or the press. Amid the rejoicings over peace the Federalist Party broke down and soon vanished from existence.
When Madison left the presidency in 1817, the citizens of Washington held a mass meeting at which he was congratulated on “the untarnished glory” of his administration. During the war, they declared, Madison had held military authority within its proper limits, directed it with energy, and “won power and glory…without infringing a political, civil, or religious right.”
Later Years
During the remaining 19 years of his life Madison engaged in scientific farming at Montpellier. He originated methods of agriculture that did not become common until a century later. With his wife, Dolley, famous as a White House hostess, he welcomed visitors from all over the United States and Europe. Equally welcome were the children of relatives, for Madison had no children of his own.
Although a slave-owner by inheritance, Madison hated slavery and did all he could to put an end to it. As an adult he never belonged to any church, but in his mature years he expressed a preference for the Unitarian faith. After Jefferson's death in 1826, Madison succeeded his old friend as rector (in effect, president) of the new University of Virginia.
Madison's last great service to the United States began in 1828. In that year South Carolina claimed the right to nullify (declare null and void) acts of Congress. For the next 6 years the aged statesman fought this doctrine of nullification. He wrote articles against it when he was so crippled with rheumatism that he could barely move his fingers.
Madison died at Montpellier on June 28, 1836. His earliest political thought had been for the liberty of America. His last thought and his final message to his countrymen concerned the way in which that liberty could be preserved: “The advice nearest to my heart and deepest in my convictions is that the Union of the States be cherished and perpetuated.”
Irving Brant
Author, James Madison