James Madison

President of the United States from 1809 to 1817

"President Madison" redirects here. For ships named President Madison, see SS President Madison.

James Madison

File:James Madison(cropped)(c).jpg

Portrait by John Vanderlyn, 1816

4th President of the United States
In office
March 4, 1809 – March 4, 1817
Vice President|

* George Clinton (1809–1812)
* None (1812–1813)[a]
* Elbridge Gerry (1813–1814)
* None (1814–1817)[a]

Preceded by| Thomas Jefferson
Succeeded by| James Monroe
5th United States Secretary of State
In office
May 2, 1801 – March 3, 1809
President| Thomas Jefferson
Preceded by| John Marshall
Succeeded by| Robert Smith
Member of the
U.S. House of Representatives
from Virginia
In office
March 4, 1789 – March 4, 1797
Preceded by| Constituency established
Succeeded by| John Dawson
Constituency| 5th district (1789-1793)
15th district (1793-1797)
Delegate from Virginia to the Congress of the Confederation
In office
November 6, 1786 – October 30, 1787
In office
March 1, 1781 – November 1, 1783
Personal details
Born|

James Madison Jr.

(1751-03-16)March 16, 1751
Port Conway, Virginia, British America
Died| June 28, 1836(1836-06-28) (aged 85)
Montpelier, Virginia, U.S.
Cause of death| Congestive heart failure
Political party| Democratic–Republican
Height| 5 ft 4 in (163 cm)
Spouse|

Dolley Todd

(m. 1794)​

Parents|

* James Madison Sr.
* Nelly Madison

James Madison Jr. (March 16, 1751[b] - June 28, 1836) was an American statesman, diplomat, and Founding Father. He served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Madison is hailed as the "Father of the Constitution" for his pivotal role in drafting and promoting the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights.

Madison was born into a prominent planter family in Virginia. He served as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates and the Continental Congress during and after the American Revolutionary War. Disillusioned by the weak national government established by the Articles of Confederation, he helped organize the Constitutional Convention, which produced a new constitution. Madison's Virginia Plan served as the basis for the Convention's deliberations, and he was an influential voice at the convention. He became one of the leaders in the movement to ratify the Constitution, and joined Alexander Hamilton and John Jay in writing The Federalist Papers, a series of pro-ratification essays which remains prominent among works of political science in American history. Madison emerged as an important leader in the House of Representatives and was a close adviser to President George Washington.

During the early 1790s, Madison opposed the economic program and the accompanying centralization of power favored by Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton and, alongside Thomas Jefferson, organized the Democratic–Republican Party in opposition to Hamilton's Federalist Party. After Jefferson was elected president in 1800, Madison served as his Secretary of State from 1801 to 1809. In that position, he supervised the Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the size of the United States. Madison was elected president in 1808. Motivated by the desire for acquiring land held by Britain, Spain, and Native Americans, and after diplomatic protests with a trade embargo failed to end British seizures of American shipping, he led the United States into the War of 1812. The war was an administrative morass and ended inconclusively, but many Americans saw it as a successful "second war of independence" against Britain. Madison was re-elected in 1812, albeit by a smaller margin than in the 1808 election. The war convinced Madison of the necessity of a stronger federal government. He presided over the creation of the Second Bank of the United States and the enactment of the protective Tariff of 1816. By treaty or through war, Native American tribes ceded 23 million acres of land to the United States under Madison's presidency.

Retiring from public office at the end of his presidency in 1817, Madison returned to his plantation, Montpelier, and died there in 1836. Like Jefferson and Washington, Madison was a wealthy slave owner who never privately reconciled his republican beliefs with his slave ownership. Forced to pay debts, he never freed his slaves. Madison is considered one of the most important Founding Fathers of the United States, and historians have generally ranked him as an above-average president, although they are critical of how Madison executed the War of 1812. Madison's name is commemorated in many landmarks across the nation, both publicly and privately, with prominent examples including Madison Square Garden, James Madison University, and the USS James Madison.

## Contents

* 1 Early life and education
* 2 American Revolution and Articles of Confederation
* 3 Ratification of the Constitution
* 4 Congressman and party leader (1789–1801)
* 4.1 Election to Congress
* 4.2 Bill of Rights
* 4.3 Founding the Democratic–Republican Party
* 4.4 Marriage and family
* 4.5 Adams presidency
* 5 Secretary of State (1801–1809)
* 5.1 1808 presidential election
* 6 Presidency (1809–1817)
* 6.1 Inauguration and cabinet
* 6.2 War of 1812
* 6.2.1 Prelude to war
* 6.2.2 Military action
* 6.3 Postwar period and decline of the Federalist opposition
* 6.4 Native American policy
* 6.5 Election of 1816
* 7 Post-presidency (1817–1836)
* 7.1 Death
* 8 Political and religious views
* 8.1 Federalism
* 8.2 Religion
* 8.3 Slavery
* 9 Legacy
* 9.1 Historical reputation
* 9.2 Memorials
* 10 Explanatory notes
* 11 References
* 12 Works cited
* 13 Further reading
* 14 External links

## Early life and education[edit | edit source]

James Madison Jr. was born on March 16, 1751 (March 5, 1750, Old Style), at Belle Grove Plantation near Port Conway in the Colony of Virginia, to James Madison Sr. and Nelly Conway Madison. His family had lived in Virginia since the mid-17th century.[2] Madison's maternal grandfather was a prominent planter and tobacco merchant.[3] His father was a tobacco planter who grew up at a plantation, then called Mount Pleasant, which he had inherited upon reaching adulthood. With an estimated 100 slaves[2] and a 5,000 acres (2,000 ha) plantation, Madison's father was the largest landowner in Piedmont. In the early 1760s, the Madison family moved into a newly built house that they named Montpelier.[4] Madison grew up as the oldest of twelve children,[5] with seven brothers and four sisters, though only six lived to adulthood.[4] Of the surviving siblings, three brothers, Francis, Ambrose, and William, and three sisters, Nelly, Sarah, and Frances, it was Ambrose who would eventually help to manage Montpelier for both his father and older brother until his own death in 1793.[6]

File:MadisonBirthplacePortConwayVA.jpg

Virginia historic marker for Birthplace of President James Madison in Port Conway, Virginia

From age 11 to 16, Madison studied under Donald Robertson, a Scottish instructor who served as a tutor for several prominent planter families in the South. Madison learned mathematics, geography, and modern and classical languages, becoming exceptionally proficient in Latin.[7][8] At age 16, Madison returned to Montpelier, where he studied under the Reverend Thomas Martin to prepare for college. Unlike most college-bound Virginians of his day, Madison did not attend the College of William and Mary, where the lowland Williamsburg climate—thought to be more likely to harbor infectious disease—might have strained his sensibilities concerning his own health. Instead, in 1769, he enrolled at the College of New Jersey (later renamed Princeton University).[9]

File:1811, Sharples, James, James Madison.jpg

Madison as a student at Princeton, portrait by James Sharples

His college studies included Latin, Greek, theology, and the works of the Enlightenment.[10] Emphasis was placed on both speech and debate; Madison was a leading member of the American Whig–Cliosophic Society, which competed on campus with a political counterpart, the Cliosophic Society.[11] During his time in Princeton, Madison's closest friend was future Attorney General William Bradford.[12] Along with another classmate, Madison undertook an intense program of study and completed the college's three-year Bachelor of Arts degree in just two years, graduating in 1771.[13] Madison had contemplated either entering the clergy or practicing law after graduation, but instead remained at Princeton to study Hebrew and political philosophy under the college's president, John Witherspoon.[2] He returned home to Montpelier in early 1772.[14]

Madison's ideas on philosophy and morality were strongly shaped by Witherspoon, who converted him to the philosophy, values, and modes of thinking of the Age of Enlightenment. Biographer Terence Ball wrote that at Princeton, Madison "was immersed in the liberalism of the Enlightenment, and converted to eighteenth-century political radicalism. From then on James Madison's theories would advance the rights of happiness of man, and his most active efforts would serve devotedly the cause of civil and political liberty."[15]

After returning to Montpelier, without a chosen career, Madison served as a tutor to his younger siblings.[16] Madison began to study law books in 1773, asking his friend William Bradford, a law apprentice, to send him a written plan of study. He had acquired an understanding of legal publications by 1783. Madison saw himself as a law student but not a lawyer: he did not apprentice himself to a lawyer, and never joined the bar.[17] Following the Revolutionary War, Madison spent time at Montpelier in Virginia studying ancient democracies of the world in preparation for the Constitutional Convention.[18] Upon reaching adulthood, Madison was only 5 ft 4 in (1.63 m) tall and never weighing more than 100 lb (45 kg), he was the country's most diminutive president.[19] He had bright blue eyes and was known to be humorous in small gatherings. Madison suffered from episodes of mental exhaustion and illness with associated nervousness, and was often sidelined after periods of stress. He often feared for the worst and was a hypochondriac. However, Madison was physically able and usually in good physical health throughout his long life until his very last years.[20]

## American Revolution and Articles of Confederation[edit | edit source]

In 1765, the British Parliament passed the Stamp Act: strong opposition by the colonists began a conflict that would culminate in the American Revolution. The disagreement centered on Parliament's right to levy taxes on the colonists, who were not directly represented in that body. The American Revolutionary War broke out in 1775 and would last till 1783. The colonists formed three prominent factions: Loyalists, who continued to back George III, a significant neutral faction without firm commitments to either Loyalists or Patriots, and the Patriots, whom Madison joined, under the leadership of the Continental Congress. Madison believed that Parliament had overstepped its bounds by attempting to tax the American colonies, and he sympathized with those who resisted British rule.[21] Historically, on-going debate and eventual legislation was passed in the British Parliament (subsequently called the Consecration of Bishops Abroad Act 1786) to allow bishops to be consecrated for an American church outside of allegiance to the British Crown (since no dioceses had ever been established in the former American colonies).[22] Both in the United States and in Canada, the new Anglican churches developed novel models of self-government, collective decision-making, and self-supported financing; that would be consistent with separation of religious and secular identities.[23] Madison believed these measures to be insufficient, however, and he also favored disestablishing the Anglican Church in Virginia; Madison believed that tolerance of an established religion was detrimental not only to freedom of religion but also because it encouraged excessive deference to any authority which might be asserted by an established church.[24]

File:James Madison, by Charles Willson Peale, 1783.png

Madison's portrait as Congressional delegate at age 32 when he was already recognized as a contributor to politics and government. Portrait by Charles Willson Peale

In 1774, Madison took a seat on the local Committee of Safety after returning to Montpelier, a pro-revolution group that oversaw the local Patriot militia.[25] In October 1775, he was commissioned as the colonel of the Orange County militia, serving as his father's second-in-command until he was elected as a delegate to the Fifth Virginia Convention, which was charged with producing Virginia's first constitution.[26] Although Madison never saw battle in the Revolutionary War, he did rise to prominence in Virginia politics as a wartime leader.[27] At the Virginia constitutional convention, he convinced delegates to alter the Virginia Declaration of Rights to provide for "equal entitlement", rather than mere "tolerance", in the exercise of religion.[28] With the enactment of the Virginia constitution, Madison became part of the Virginia House of Delegates, and he was subsequently elected to the Virginia governor's Council of State,[29] where he became a close ally of Governor Thomas Jefferson.[30] On July 4, 1776, the United States Declaration of Independence was formally printed, declaring the 13 American states an independent nation.[31][32]

Madison participated in the debates concerning the Articles of Confederation in November of 1777, contributing to the discussion of religious freedom affecting the drafting of the Articles, but he was not a signatory of the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. Madison had proposed liberalizing the article on religious freedom, but the larger Virginia Convention stripped the proposed constitution of the more radical language. Other amendments by the committee and the entire Convention included the addition of a section on the right to a uniform government.[33] Madison again served on the Council of State, from 1777 to 1779, when he was elected to the Second Continental Congress, the governing body of the United States.[c]

During Madison's term in Congress, the U.S. faced a difficult war against Great Britain, as well as runaway inflation, financial troubles, and lack of cooperation between the different levels of government. According to historian J.C.A. Stagg, Madison worked to become an expert on financial issues, becoming a legislative workhorse and a master of parliamentary coalition building.[25] Frustrated by the failure of the states to supply needed requisitions, Madison proposed to amend the Articles of Confederation to grant Congress the power to independently raise revenue through tariffs on imports.[35] Though General George Washington, Congressman Alexander Hamilton, and other leaders also favored the tariff amendment, it was defeated because it failed to win the ratification of all thirteen states.[36] While a member of Congress, Madison was an ardent supporter of a close alliance between the United States and France; and, as an advocate of westward expansion, he insisted that the new nation had to insure its right to navigation on the Mississippi River and control of all lands east of it in the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War.[37] After serving in Congress from 1780 to 1783, Madison won election to the Virginia House of Delegates in 1784.[38]

## Ratification of the Constitution[edit | edit source]

Main articles: James Madison as Father of the Constitution and Constitutional Convention (United States)

Further information: Confederation period

As a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, Madison continued to advocate for religious freedom, and, along with Jefferson, drafted the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. That amendment, which guaranteed freedom of religion and disestablished the Church of England, was passed in 1786.[39].</ref> Madison also became a land speculator, purchasing land along the Mohawk River in partnership with another Jefferson protégé, James Monroe.[40] Throughout the 1780s, Madison became increasingly worried about the disunity of the states and the weakness of the central government after the end of the Revolutionary War in 1783.[41] He believed that "excessive democracy" caused social decay, and was particularly troubled by laws that legalized paper money and denied diplomatic immunity to ambassadors from other countries.[42] Madison was also concerned about the inability of Congress to capably conduct foreign policy, protect American trade, and foster the settlement of the lands between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River.[43] As Madison wrote, "a crisis had arrived which was to decide whether the American experiment was to be a blessing to the world, or to blast for ever the hopes which the republican cause had inspired."[44].</ref> He committed to an intense study of law and political theory and also was influenced by Enlightenment texts sent by Jefferson from France.[45] He especially sought out works on international law and the constitutions of "ancient and modern confederacies" such as the Dutch Republic, the Swiss Confederation, and the Achaean League.[46] He came to believe that the United States could improve upon past republican experiments by its size; with so many distinct interests competing against each other, Madison hoped to minimize the abuses of majority rule.[47] Additionally, navigation rights to the Mississippi River highly concerned Madison. He disdained a proposal by John Jay that the United States concede claims to the river for 25 years, and, according to historian John Ketchum, Madison's desire to fight the proposal was a major motivation in his to return to Congress in 1787.[48]

File:Constitution of the United States, page 1.jpg

First page of the original handwritten copy of the U.S. Constitution

File:Foundation of the American Government by Henry Hintermeister.jpg

Gouverneur Morris signs the Constitution before George Washington. Madison sits next to Robert Morris, in front of Benjamin Franklin. Painting by John Henry Hintermeister, 1925.[49]

Before a quorum was reached for the Constitution,[50] Madison worked with other members of the Virginia delegation, especially Edmund Randolph and George Mason, to create and present the Virginia Plan, an outline for a new federal constitution.[51] It called for three branches of government (legislative, executive, and judicial), a bicameral Congress (consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives) apportioned by population, and a federal Council of Revision that would have the right to veto laws passed by Congress.[52] The Virginia Plan did not explicitly lay out the structure of the executive branch, but Madison himself favored a single executive.[53] Many delegates were surprised to learn that the plan called for the abrogation of the Articles and the creation of a new constitution, to be ratified by special conventions in each state, rather than by the state legislatures. With the assent of prominent attendees such as Washington and Benjamin Franklin, the delegates agreed in a secret session that the abrogation of the Articles and the creation of a new constitution was a plausible option and began scheduling the process of debating its ratification in the individual states.[54]

After the Philadelphia Convention ended in September 1787, Madison convinced his fellow congressmen to remain neutral in the ratification debate and allow each state to vote upon the Constitution.[55] Throughout the United States, opponents of the Constitution, known as Anti-Federalists, began a public campaign against ratification. In response, Hamilton and Jay began publishing a series of pro-ratification newspaper articles in New York.[56] After Jay dropped out of the project, Hamilton approached Madison, who was in New York on congressional business, to write some of the essays.[57] Together, Hamilton, Madison, and Jay wrote the 85 essays that became known as The Federalist Papers in six months, with Madison writing 29 of them. The articles were also published in book form and became a virtual debater's handbook for the supporters of the Constitution in the ratifying conventions. Federalist No. 10, Madison's first contribution to The Federalist Papers, became highly regarded in the 20th century for its advocacy of representative democracy.[58] In it, Madison describes the dangers posed by factions and argues that their negative effects can be limited through the formation of a large republic. He states that in large republics the large number of factions that emerge will control their corrupting effect.[59][60] In Federalist No. 51, he goes on to explain how the separation of powers between three branches of the federal government, as well as between state governments and the federal government, establishes a system of checks and balances that ensure that no one institution would become too powerful.[61]

As the Virginia ratification convention began, Madison focused his efforts on winning the support of the relatively small number of undecided delegates.[62] His long correspondence with Randolph paid off at the convention, as Randolph announced that he would support unconditional ratification of the Constitution, with amendments to be proposed after ratification.[63] Though Henry gave several persuasive speeches arguing against ratification, Madison's expertise on the subject he had long argued for allowed him to respond with rational arguments to Patrick Henry's emotional appeals.[64] In his final speech to the ratifying convention, Madison implored his fellow delegates to ratify the Constitution as it had been written, arguing that failure to do so would lead to the collapse of the entire ratification effort, as each state would seek favorable amendments.[65] On June 25, 1788, the convention voted 89–79 to ratify the Constitution, making Virginia the tenth state to do so.[66] New York ratified the Constitution the following month and Washington won the country's first presidential election.[67]

## Congressman and party leader (1789–1801)[edit | edit source]

### Election to Congress[edit | edit source]

Further information: Presidency of George Washington

After Virginia ratified the constitution, Madison returned to New York and resumed his duties in the Congress of the Confederation. With concerns both for his political career and over the possibility that Henry and his allies would arrange for a second constitutional convention, Madison ran for the House of Representatives.[68][69] At Henry's behest, the Virginia legislature created congressional districts designed to deny Madison a seat, and Henry recruited Monroe, a strong challenger to Madison. Locked in a difficult race against Monroe, Madison promised to support a series of constitutional amendments to protect individual liberties.[68] In an open letter, Madison wrote that, while he had opposed requiring alterations to the Constitution before ratification, he now believed that "amendments, if pursued with a proper moderation and in a proper mode ... may serve the double purpose of satisfying the minds of well-meaning opponents, and of providing additional guards in favor of liberty."[70] Madison's promise paid off, as in Virginia's 5th district election, he gained a seat in Congress with 57 percent of the vote.[71]

Madison became a key adviser to Washington, who valued Madison's understanding of the constitution.[68] Madison helped Washington write his first inaugural address, and also prepared the official House response to Washington's speech. He played a significant role in establishing and staffing the three Cabinet departments, and his influence helped Thomas Jefferson become the first Secretary of State.[72] At the start of the first Congress, he introduced a tariff bill similar to the one he had advocated for under the Articles of the Confederation,[73] and Congress established a federal tariff on imports by enacting the Tariff of 1789.[74], pp. 100–102</ref> The following year, Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton introduced an ambitious economic program that called for the federal assumption of state debts and the funding of that debt through the issuance of federal securities. Hamilton's plan favored Northern speculators and was disadvantageous to states, such as Virginia, that had already paid off most of their debt; and Madison emerged as one of the principal Congressional opponents of the plan.[75] After prolonged legislative deadlock, Madison, Jefferson, and Hamilton agreed to the Compromise of 1790, which provided for the enactment of Hamilton's assumption plan, as part of the Funding Act of 1790. In return, Congress passed the Residence Act, which established the federal capital district of Washington, D.C., on the Potomac River.[76]

### Bill of Rights[edit | edit source]

During the first Congress, Madison took the lead in advocating for several constitutional amendments to the Bill of Rights.[77] His primary goals were to fulfill his 1789 campaign pledge and to prevent the calling of a second constitutional convention, but he also hoped to protect individual liberties against the actions of the federal government and state legislatures. He believed that the enumeration of specific rights would fix those rights in the public mind and encourage judges to protect them.[78] After studying over two-hundred amendments that had been proposed at the state ratifying conventions,[79] Madison introduced the Bill of Rights on June 8, 1789. His amendments contained numerous restrictions on the federal government and would protect, among other things, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and the right to peaceful assembly.[80] While most of his proposed amendments were drawn from the ratifying conventions, Madison was largely responsible for proposals to guarantee freedom of the press, protect property from government seizure, and ensure jury trials.[79] He also proposed an amendment to prevent states from abridging "equal rights of conscience, or freedom of the press, or the trial by jury in criminal cases".[81]

Madison's Bill of Rights faced little opposition; he had largely co-opted the Anti-Federalist goal of amending the Constitution but had avoided proposing amendments that would alienate supporters of the Constitution.[82] Madison's proposed amendments were largely adopted by the House of Representatives, but the Senate made several changes.[83] Madison's proposal to apply parts of the Bill of Rights to the states was eliminated, as was his change to the Constitution's preamble which Madison thought would be enhanced by including a prefatory paragraph indicating that governmental power is vested by the people.[84].</ref> Madison was disappointed that the Bill of Rights did not include protections against actions by state governments,[d] but the passage of the document mollified some critics of the original constitution and shored up Madison's support in Virginia.[79] Of the twelve amendments formally proposed by Congress to the states, ten amendments were ratified on December 15, 1791, becoming known as the Bill of Rights.[86][e]

### Founding the Democratic–Republican Party[edit | edit source]

File:Official Presidential portrait of Thomas Jefferson (by Rembrandt Peale, 1800).jpg

Thomas Jefferson founded the Democratic-Republican Party with Madison and broadly represented Southern interests.

After 1790, the Washington administration became polarized into two main factions. One faction, led by Jefferson and Madison, broadly represented Southern interests and sought close relations with France which became the Democratic-Republican Party opposition to Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton. The other faction, led by Hamilton and the Federalists, broadly represented Northern financial interests and favored close relations with Britain.[88] In 1791, Hamilton introduced a plan that called for the establishment of a national bank to provide loans to emerging industries and oversee the money supply.[89] Madison and the Democratic-Republican Party fought back against Hamilton's attempt to expand the power of the Federal Government with the formation of a national bank. Therefore, they opposed Hamilton's plan for the formation of a national bank and Madison argued that under the Constitution, Congress did not have the power to create such an institution.[90] Despite Madison's opposition, Congress passed a bill to create the First Bank of the United States, which Washington signed into law in February 1791.[89] As Hamilton implemented his economic program and Washington continued to enjoy immense prestige as president, Madison became increasingly concerned that Hamilton would seek to abolish the federal republic in favor of a centralized monarchy.[91]

When Hamilton submitted his Report on Manufactures, which called for federal action to stimulate the development of a diversified economy, Madison once again challenged Hamilton's proposal.[92] Along with Jefferson, Madison helped Philip Freneau establish the National Gazette, a Philadelphia newspaper that attacked Hamilton's proposals.[93] In an essay published in the new newspaper in September 1792, Madison wrote that the country had divided into two factions: his faction, which believed "that mankind are capable of governing themselves", and Hamilton's faction, which allegedly sought the establishment of an aristocratic monarchy and was biased in favor of the wealthy.[94] Those opposed to Hamilton's economic policies, including many former Anti-Federalists, coalesced into the Democratic–Republican Party,[f] while those who supported the administration's policies coalesced into the Federalist Party.[96] In the 1792 presidential election, both major parties supported Washington for re-election, but the Democratic–Republicans sought to unseat Vice President John Adams. Because the Constitution's rules essentially precluded Jefferson from challenging Adams,[g] the party backed New York Governor George Clinton for the vice presidency, but Adams won nonetheless.[98]

With Jefferson out of office after 1793, Madison became the de facto leader of the Democratic–Republican Party.[99] When Britain and France went to war in 1793, the U.S. was caught in the middle.[100] While the differences between the Democratic–Republicans and the Federalists had previously centered on economic matters, foreign policy became an increasingly important issue, as Madison and Jefferson favored France and Hamilton favored Britain.[101] War with Britain became imminent in 1794, after the British seized hundreds of American ships that were trading with French colonies. Madison believed that a trade war with Britain would probably succeed, and would allow Americans to assert their independence fully. The British West Indies, Madison maintained, could not live without American foodstuffs, but Americans could easily do without British manufacturers.[102] Washington then secured friendly trade relations with Britain through the Jay Treaty of 1794.[103] Madison and his Democratic–Republican allies were outraged by the treaty; the Democratic–Republican Robert R. Livingston wrote to Madison that the treaty "sacrifices every essential interest and prostrates the honor of our country".[104] Madison's strong opposition to the treaty led to a permanent break with Washington, ending their friendship.[103]

### Marriage and family[edit | edit source]

On September 15, 1794, Madison married Dolley Payne Todd, a 26-year-old widow of John Todd, a Quaker farmer who died during a yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia.[105] Aaron Burr introduced Madison to her, at his request, after Dolley had stayed in the same boardinghouse as Burr in Philadelphia. After an arranged meeting in early 1794, the two quickly became romantically engaged and prepared for a wedding that summer, but Dolley suffered recurring illnesses because of her exposure to yellow fever in Philadelphia. They eventually traveled to Harewood in Virginia for their wedding. Only a few close family members attended, and Winchester Reverend Alexander Balmain presided.[106] She became a renowned figure in Washington, D.C., and excelled at hosting dinners and other important political occasions.[107] Dolley subsequently helped to establish the modern image of the first lady of the United States as an individual who has a leading role in the social affairs of the nation.[108]

Madison never had children, but he adopted Dolley's one surviving son, John Payne Todd (known as Payne), after the marriage.[109] Some of his colleagues, such as Monroe and Burr, would later infer that Madison was infertile and that his lack of offspring weighed on his thoughts; but Madison never spoke of any such distress.[110] Nonetheless, his fertility has come into question in recent years, following a popular 2007 article in The Washington Post, in which an African-American named Bettye Kearse claimed to be a descendant of Madison and a slave named Coreen.[111][112]

### Adams presidency[edit | edit source]

Further information: Presidency of John Adams

Washington chose to retire after serving two terms and, in advance of the 1796 presidential election, Madison helped convince Jefferson to run for the presidency.[99] Despite Madison's efforts, Federalist candidate John Adams defeated Jefferson, taking a narrow majority of the electoral vote.[113] Under the rules of the Electoral College then in place, Jefferson became vice president because he finished with the second-most electoral votes.[114] Madison, meanwhile, had declined to seek re-election, and he returned to Montpelier.[109] On Jefferson's advice, Adams considered appointing Madison to an American delegation charged with ending French attacks on American shipping, but Adams's cabinet members strongly opposed the idea.[115]

Though he was out of office, Madison remained a prominent Democratic–Republican leader in opposition to the Adams administration.[116].</ref>[117] Madison and Jefferson believed that the Federalists were using the Quasi-War with France to justify the violation of constitutional rights by passing the Alien and Sedition Acts, and they increasingly came to view Adams as a monarchist.[118] Both Madison and Jefferson, as leaders of the Democratic–Republican party, expressed the belief that natural rights were non-negotiable even during a time of war. Madison believed that the Alien and Sedition acts formed a dangerous precedent, by giving the government the power to look past the natural rights of its people in the name of national security.[119] In response to the Alien and Sedition Acts, Jefferson argued that the states had the power to nullify federal law on the basis of the Constitution being a compact among the states. Madison rejected this view of nullification, and urged that states respond to unjust federal laws through interposition, a process by which a state legislature declared a law to be unconstitutional but did not take steps to actively prevent its enforcement. Jefferson's doctrine of nullification was widely rejected, and the incident damaged the Democratic–Republican Party as attention was shifted from the Alien and Sedition Acts to the unpopular nullification doctrine.[120]

In 1799, Madison won election to the Virginia legislature. At the same time, he and Jefferson planned for Jefferson's campaign in the 1800 presidential election.[121] Madison issued the Report of 1800, which attacked the Alien and Sedition Acts as unconstitutional. That report held that Congress was limited to legislating on its enumerated powers and that punishment for sedition violated freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Jefferson embraced the report, and it became the unofficial Democratic–Republican platform for the 1800 election.[122] With the Federalists badly divided between supporters of Hamilton and Adams, and with news of the end of the Quasi-War not reaching the United States until after the election, Jefferson and his ostensible running mate, Aaron Burr, defeated Adams, allowing Jefferson to prevail as president.[123][124]

## Secretary of State (1801–1809)[edit | edit source]

Further information: Presidency of Thomas Jefferson

Despite lacking foreign policy experience, his political colleague Madison was appointed as the secretary of state by Jefferson,[125].</ref> and was one of two major influences in Jefferson's Cabinet, the other being Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.[126] Madison, an introspective individual, enjoyed a strong relationship with his wife[108] and relied deeply on her in dealing with the social pressures of being a public figure both in his own Cabinet appointment as secretary of state and afterwards.[107] As the ascent of Napoleon in France had dulled Democratic–Republican enthusiasm for the French cause, Madison sought a neutral position in the ongoing Coalition Wars between France and Britain.[127] Domestically, the Jefferson administration and the Democratic–Republican Congress rolled back many Federalist policies; Congress quickly repealed the Alien and Sedition Act, abolished internal taxes, and reduced the size of the army and navy.[128] Gallatin, however, did convince Jefferson to retain the First Bank of the United States.[129] Though the Federalists were rapidly fading away at the national level, Chief Justice John Marshall ensured that Federalist ideology retained an important presence in the judiciary. In the case of Marbury v. Madison, Marshall simultaneously ruled that Madison had unjustly refused to deliver federal commissions to individuals who had been appointed to federal positions by President Adams but who had not yet taken office, but that the Supreme Court did not have jurisdiction over the case. Most importantly, Marshall's opinion established the principle of judicial review.[130] While attaining the position of secretary of state and throughout his life, Madison maintained a close relationship with his father, James Sr., who died in 1801. At age 50, Madison inherited the large plantation of Montpelier and other possessions, including his father's numerous slaves.[131] Of his six siblings who lived to adulthood, Ambrose helped manage Montpelier for both his father and older brother until his own death in 1793.[6]

File:Louisiana Purchase.png

The 1803 Louisiana Purchase totaled 827,987 square miles (2,144,480 square kilometers), doubling the size of the United States.

File:James Madison by Gilbert Stuart.jpg

James Madison as Secretary of State painted by Gilbert Stuart, c. 1805–1807

Jefferson took office and was sympathetic to the westward expansion of Americans who had settled as far west as the Mississippi River; this was supported by the regional demographics of American land in the far west which remained sparse in comparison to the more populated eastern states, or inhabited almost exclusively by Native Americans. Jefferson promoted such western expansion and hoped to acquire the Spanish territory of Louisiana, which was located to the west of the Mississippi River for expansionist purposes.[132] Early in Jefferson's presidency, the administration learned that Spain planned to retrocede the Louisiana territory to France, raising fears of French encroachment on U.S. territory.[133] In 1802, Jefferson and Madison sent Monroe to France to negotiate the purchase of New Orleans, which controlled access to the Mississippi River and thus was immensely important to the farmers of the American frontier. Rather than merely selling New Orleans, Napoleon's government, having already given up on plans to establish a new French empire in the Americas, offered to sell the entire territory of Louisiana. Despite lacking explicit authorization from Jefferson, Monroe, along with ambassador Livingston, negotiated the Louisiana Purchase, in which France sold over 800,000 square miles (2,100,000 square kilometers) of land in exchange for $15 million ($271 million adjusted for inflation in 2021).[134]

Despite the time-sensitive nature of negotiations with the French, Jefferson was concerned about the constitutionality of the Louisiana Purchase, and he privately favored introducing a constitutional amendment explicitly authorizing Congress to acquire new territories. Madison convinced Jefferson to refrain from proposing the amendment, and the administration ultimately submitted the Louisiana Purchase Treaty for approval by the Senate, without an accompanying constitutional amendment.[135] Unlike Jefferson, Madison was not seriously concerned with the constitutionality of the purchase. He believed that the circumstances did not warrant a strict interpretation of the Constitution, because the expansion was in the country's best interest.[136] The Senate quickly ratified the treaty, and the House, with equal alacrity, passed enabling legislation.[137][138][139]

Early in his tenure, Jefferson was able to maintain cordial relations with both France and Britain, but relations with Britain deteriorated after 1805.[140] The British ended their policy of tolerance towards American shipping and began seizing American goods headed for French ports.[141] They also impressed American sailors, some of whom had originally defected from the British navy, but some of whom had never been British subjects.[142].</ref> In response to the attacks, Congress passed the Non-importation Act, which restricted many, but not all, British imports.[141] Tensions with Britain were heightened due to the Chesapeake–Leopard affair, a June 1807 naval confrontation between American and British naval forces, while the French also began attacking American shipping.[143] Madison believed that economic pressure could force the British to end their seizure of American shipping, and he and Jefferson convinced Congress to pass the Embargo Act of 1807, which banned all exports to foreign nations.[144] The embargo proved ineffective, unpopular, and difficult to enforce, especially in New England.[145] In March 1809, Congress replaced the embargo with the Non-Intercourse Act, which allowed trade with nations other than Britain and France.[146]

### 1808 presidential election[edit | edit source]

Main article: 1808 United States presidential election

File:ElectoralCollege1808.svg

Following Jefferson's presidency, Madison's 1808 electoral vote results

Speculation regarding Madison's potential succession of Jefferson commenced early in Jefferson's first term. Madison's status in the party was damaged by his association with the embargo, which was unpopular throughout the country and especially in the Northeast.[147] With the Federalists collapsing as a national party after 1800, the chief opposition to Madison's candidacy came from other members of the Democratic–Republican Party.[148] Madison became the target of attacks from Congressman John Randolph, a leader of a faction of the party known as the tertium quids.[149]

Randolph recruited Monroe, who had felt betrayed by the administration's rejection of the proposed Monroe–Pinkney Treaty with Britain, to challenge Madison for leadership of the party.[150] Many Northerners, meanwhile, hoped that Vice President Clinton could unseat Madison as Jefferson's successor.[151] Despite this opposition, Madison won his party's presidential nomination at the January 1808 congressional nominating caucus.[152] The Federalist Party mustered little strength outside New England, and Madison easily defeated Federalist candidate Charles Cotesworth Pinckney in the general election.[153].</ref>

## Presidency (1809–1817)[edit | edit source]

Main article: Presidency of James Madison

File:James Madison Portrait2.jpg

James Madison as President, engraving by David Edwin from between 1809 and 1817

### Inauguration and cabinet[edit | edit source]

On March 4, 1809, Madison took the oath of office and was inaugurated president. Unlike Jefferson, who enjoyed relatively unified support, Madison faced political opposition from Monroe and Clinton. Additionally, the Federalist Party was resurgent owing to opposition to the embargo. Aside from his planned nomination of Gallatin for secretary of state, the remaining members of Madison's Cabinet were chosen merely to further political harmony, and, according to historians Ketcham and Rutland, were largely unremarkable or incompetent.[154][155] Madison immediately faced opposition to his planned nomination of Secretary of the Treasury Gallatin as secretary of state. Madison eventually chose not to nominate Gallatin, keeping him in the treasury department.[156].</ref>

Madison settled instead for Robert Smith, the brother of Maryland Senator Samuel Smith, to be the secretary of state.[155] However, for the next two years, Madison performed most of the job of the secretary of state due to Smith's incompetence. After bitter intra-party contention, Madison finally replaced Smith with Monroe in April 1811.[157][158] With a Cabinet full of those he distrusted, Madison rarely called Cabinet meetings and instead frequently consulted with Gallatin alone.[159].</ref> Early in his presidency, Madison sought to continue Jefferson's policies of low taxes and a reduction of the national debt.[160] In 1811, Congress allowed the charter of the First Bank of the United States to lapse after Madison declined to take a strong stance on the issue.[161].</ref>

### War of 1812[edit | edit source]

Further information: War of 1812 and Origins of the War of 1812

#### Prelude to war[edit | edit source]

Congress had repealed the Embargo Act of 1807 shortly before Madison became president, but troubles with the British and French continued.[162].</ref> Madison settled on a new strategy that was designed to pit the British and French against each other, offering to trade with whichever country would end their attacks against American shipping. The gambit almost succeeded, but negotiations with the British collapsed in mid-1809.[163] Seeking to drive a wedge between the Americans and British, Napoleon offered to end French attacks on American shipping so long as the United States punished any countries that did not similarly end restrictions on trade.[164].</ref> Madison accepted Napoleon's proposal in the hope that it would convince the British to finally end their policy of commercial warfare. However, the British refused to change their policies, and the French reneged on their promise and continued to attack American shipping.[165].</ref>

With sanctions and other policies having failed, Madison determined that war with Britain was the only remaining option.[166] Many Americans called for a "second war of independence" to restore honor and stature to their new nation, and an angry public elected a "war hawk" Congress, led by Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun.[167] With Britain in the midst of the Napoleonic Wars, many Americans including Madison believed that the United States could easily capture Canada, at which point the U.S. could use Canada as a bargaining chip for all other disputes or simply retain control of it.[168] On June 1, 1812, Madison asked Congress for a declaration of war, stating that the United States could no longer tolerate Britain's "state of war against the United States". The declaration of war was passed along sectional and party lines, with opposition to the declaration coming from Federalists and from some Democratic–Republicans in the Northeast.[169] In the years prior to the war, Jefferson and Madison had reduced the size of the military, leaving the country with a military force consisting mostly of poorly trained militia members.[170].</ref> Madison asked Congress to quickly put the country "into an armor and an attitude demanded by the crisis", specifically recommending expansion of the army and navy.[171]

#### Military action[edit | edit source]

File:USS Constitution vs Guerriere.jpg

USS Constitution defeats HMS Guerriere, a significant event during the war. U.S. nautical victories boosted American morale.

Madison and his advisers initially believed the war would result in a quick American victory.[168][172] Being overconfident, Madison ordered a three front invasion of Canada, starting at Detroit, which was designed to loosen British control around American-held Fort Niagara and destroy the British supply lines from Montreal. These actions would gain leverage for concessions to protect American shipping in the Atlantic.[172] Without a standing army, Madison counted on state militias to rally to the flag and invade Canada: however, governors in the Northeast failed to cooperate.[173] As a result, Madison's first Canadian campaign ended in failure. The British army was more organized, used professional soldiers, and fostered an alliance with Native American tribes led by Tecumseh. On August 16, Major General William Hull, timidly fearing Indian attack, quickly surrendered to British and Native American forces at Detroit.[172] On October 13, a separate force from the United States was defeated at Queenston Heights.[174][172] Commanding General Henry Dearborn, hampered by mutinous New England infantry, retreated to winter quarters near Albany, after failing to destroy Montreal's vulnerable British supply lines.[172] Lacking adequate revenue to fund the war, the Madison administration was forced to rely on high-interest loans furnished by bankers based in New York City and Philadelphia.[175].</ref>

In the 1812 presidential election, held during the early stages of the war, Madison was re-nominated without opposition.[176] A dissident group of New York Democratic-Republicans nominated DeWitt Clinton, the lieutenant governor of New York and the nephew of recently deceased Vice President George Clinton, to oppose Madison in the 1812 election. This faction of Democratic-Republicans hoped to unseat the president by forging a coalition among Democratic-Republicans opposed to the coming war, as well as those party faithful angry with Madison for not moving more decisively toward war, northerners weary of the Virginia dynasty and southern control of the White House, and disgruntled New Englanders who wanted almost anyone over Madison. Dismayed about their prospects of beating Madison, a group of top Federalists met with Clinton's supporters to discuss a unification strategy. Difficult as it was for them to join forces, they nominated Clinton for President and Jared Ingersoll, a Philadelphia lawyer, for vice president.[177] Hoping to shore up his support in the Northeast, where the War of 1812 was unpopular, Madison selected Governor Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts as his running mate.[178].</ref> Despite the maneuverings of Clinton and the Federalists, Madison won re-election, though by the narrowest margin of any election since that of 1800. He received 128 electoral votes to 89 for Clinton.[179] With Clinton winning most of the Northeast, Madison won Pennsylvania in addition to having swept the South and the West which ensured his victory.[180][181]

File:British Burning Washington.jpg

The British set ablaze the U.S. Capital while Madison was President on August 24, 1814.

After the disastrous start to the war, Madison accepted Russia's invitation to arbitrate, and sent a delegation led by Gallatin and John Quincy Adams (the son of former President John Adams) to Europe to negotiate a peace treaty.[168] While Madison worked to end the war, the United States experienced some impressive naval successes, by the USS Constitution and other warships, that boosted American morale.[182][172] Victorious in the Battle of Lake Erie, the U.S. crippled the supply and reinforcement of British military forces in the western theater of the war.[183] In the aftermath of the Battle of Lake Erie, General William Henry Harrison defeated the forces of the British and of Tecumseh's confederacy at the Battle of the Thames. The death of Tecumseh in that battle marked the permanent end of armed Native American resistance in the Old Northwest and any hope of a united Indian nation.[184].</ref> In March 1814, Major General Andrew Jackson broke the resistance of the British-allied Muscogee Creek in the Old Southwest with his victory at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend.[185].</ref> Despite those successes, the British continued to repel American attempts to invade Canada, and a British force captured Fort Niagara and burned the American city of Buffalo in late 1813.[186]

File:Battle of New Orleans Jean-Hyacinthe Laclotte.jpg

Battle of New Orleans took place while the Treaty of Ghent was being negotiated in 1815.

In August 1814, the British landed a large force on the shores of Chesapeake Bay and routed Winder's army at the Battle of Bladensburg.[187] The Madisons escaped capture fleeing to Virginia by horseback, however, the British burned Washington and other buildings.[188][189] The charred remains of the capital signified a humiliating defeat for Madison and America.[190] The British army next moved on Baltimore, but the U.S. repelled the British attack in the Battle of Baltimore, and the British army departed from the Chesapeake region in September.[191].</ref> That same month, U.S. forces repelled a British invasion from Canada with a victory at the Battle of Plattsburgh.[192].</ref> The British public began to turn against the war in North America, and British leaders began to look for a quick exit from the conflict.[193].</ref>

In January 1815, Jackson's troops defeated the British at the Battle of New Orleans.[194].</ref> Just over a month later, Madison learned that his negotiators had negotiated the Treaty of Ghent which ended the war. Madison quickly sent the treaty to the Senate, which ratified it on February 16, 1815.[195].</ref> Although the result of the war was inconclusive, the quick succession of events at the end of the war, including the burning of the capital, the Battle of New Orleans, and the Treaty of Ghent, made it appear as though American valor at New Orleans had forced the British to surrender. This view, while inaccurate, strongly contributed to bolstering Madison's reputation as president. The Indian people lost the most, including their land and independence.[196].</ref> Napoleon's defeat at the June 1815 Battle of Waterloo brought a final close to the Napoleonic Wars, an end to the hostile seizure of American shipping by British and French forces.[197].</ref>

### Postwar period and decline of the Federalist opposition[edit | edit source]

The postwar period of Madison's second term saw the transition into the "Era of Good Feelings", with the Federalists experiencing further decline in influence.[198] During the war, delegates from the New England states held the Hartford Convention, where they asked for several amendments to the Constitution.[199].</ref> Though the Hartford Convention did not explicitly call for the secession of New England,[200] the Convention became an adverse political millstone around the Federalist Party as general American sentiment had moved towards a celebrated unity among the states in what they saw as a successful "second war of independence" from Britain.[201].</ref> Madison hastened the decline of the Federalists by adopting several programs he had previously opposed.[202]

Recognizing the difficulties of financing the war and the necessity of an institution to regulate the currency, Madison proposed the re-establishment of a national bank. He also called for increased spending on the army and the navy, a tariff designed to protect American goods from foreign competition, and a constitutional amendment authorizing the federal government to fund the construction of internal improvements such as roads and canals. His initiatives were opposed by strict constructionists such as John Randolph, who stated that Madison's proposals "out-Hamiltons Alexander Hamilton".[203] Responding to Madison's proposals, the 14th Congress compiled one of the most productive legislative records up to that point in history.[204] Congress granted the Second Bank of the United States a twenty-five-year charter[203] and passed the Tariff of 1816, which set high import duties for all goods that were produced outside the United States.[204] Madison approved federal spending on the Cumberland Road, which provided a link to the country's western lands;[205].</ref> but in his last act before leaving office, he blocked further federal spending on internal improvements by vetoing the Bonus Bill of 1817 arguing that it unduly exceeded the limits of the General Welfare Clause concerning such improvements.[206].</ref>

### Native American policy[edit | edit source]

Further information: Treaty of Fort Wayne (1809) and Tecumseh's War

File:Tippecanoe.jpg

The Battle of Tippecanoe took place in the Northwest Territory on November 7, 1811.

In 1809 Harrison began to push for a treaty to open more land for white American settlement. The Miami, Wea, and Kickapoo were "vehemently" opposed to selling any more land around the Wabash River.[207] To motivate those groups to sell their land, Harrison decided, against the wishes of Madison, to first conclude a treaty with the tribes who were willing to sell and use those treaties to help influence those who held out. In September 1809, Harrison invited the Potawatomie, Delaware, Eel Rivers, and the Miami to a meeting in Fort Wayne. During the negotiations, Harrison promised large subsidies and direct payments to the tribes if they would cede the other lands under discussion.[208] The divisions among the Native American leaders were bitter and before leaving the discussions, Tecumseh informed Harrison that unless the terms of the negotiated treaty were largely nullified, he would seek an alliance with the British.[209] The situation continued to escalate, eventually leading to the outbreak of hostilities between Tecumseh's followers and American settlers later that year. Tensions continued to rise, leading to the Battle of Tippecanoe during a period sometimes called Tecumseh's War.[210][211]

Upon becoming president, Madison said the federal government's duty was to convert Native Americans by the "participation of the improvements of which the human mind and manners are susceptible in a civilized state".[160] On September 30, 1809, little more than six months into his first term, Madison agreed to the Treaty of Fort Wayne, negotiated and signed by Indiana Territory's Governor Harrison. The treaty began with "James Madison, President of the United States," on the first sentence of the first paragraph.[212] In the treaty, the American Indian tribes were compensated $5,200 ($109,122 in 2020) in goods and $500 in cash, with $250 in annual payments, in return for the cession of 3 million acres of land (approximately 12,140 square kilometers) with incentivized subsidies paid to individual tribes for exerting their influence over less cooperative tribes.[213][214] The treaty angered Shawnee leader Tecumseh, who said, "Sell a country! Why not sell the air, the clouds and the great sea, as well as the earth?"[215] Harrison responded that tribes were the owners of their land and could sell it to whomever they wished.[216]

Like Jefferson, Madison had a paternalistic attitude toward American Indians, encouraging the men to give up hunting and become farmers.[217] Madison believed the adoption of European-style agriculture would help Native Americans assimilate the values of British–U.S. civilization. As pioneers and settlers moved West into large tracts of Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, and Chickasaw territory, Madison ordered the U.S. Army to protect Native lands from intrusion by settlers. This was done to the chagrin of his military commander Andrew Jackson, who wanted Madison to ignore Indian pleas to stop the invasion of their lands.[218] Tensions continued to mount between the United States and Tecumseh over the 1809 Treaty of Fort Wayne, which ultimately led to Tecumseh's alliance with the British and the Battle of Tippecanoe, on November 7, 1811, in the Northwest Territory.[218][219] Tecumseh was defeated and Indians were pushed off their tribal lands, replaced entirely by white settlers.[218][219] In addition to the Battle of the Thames and the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, other wars with American Indians took place, including the Peoria War, and the Creek War. Negotiated by Jackson, in the aftermath of the Creek War, the Treaty of Fort Jackson of August 9, 1814, added 20 million acres of land to the United States (approximately 80,937 square kilometers) in Georgia and Alabama.[220]

Privately, Madison did not believe American Indians could be fully assimilated to the values of British-U.S. civilization. He believed that Native Americans may have been unwilling to make "the transition from the hunter, or even the herdsman state, to the agriculture".[215] Madison feared that Native Americans had too great an influence on the settlers they interacted with, who in his view were "irresistibly attracted by that complete liberty, that freedom from bonds, obligations, duties, that absence of care and anxiety which characterize the savage state". In March 1816, Madison's Secretary of War William Crawford advocated for the government to encourage intermarriages between Native Americans and whites as a way of assimilating the former. This prompted public outrage and exacerbated anti-Indigenous bigotry among white Americans, as seen in hostile letters sent to Madison, who remained publicly silent on the issue.[215]

### Election of 1816[edit | edit source]

In the 1816 presidential election, Madison and Jefferson both favored the candidacy of Secretary of State James Monroe, who defeated Secretary of War William H. Crawford in the party's congressional nominating caucus. As the Federalist Party continued to collapse, Monroe easily defeated Federalist candidate Rufus King in the 1816 election.[221] Madison left office as a popular president; former president Adams wrote that Madison had "acquired more glory, and established more union, than all his three predecessors, Washington, Adams, and Jefferson, put together".[222]

## Post-presidency (1817–1836)[edit | edit source]

File:Gilbert Stuart, James Madison, c. 1821, NGA 56914.jpg

Portrait of James Madison after the completion of his two terms as president c. 1821, by Gilbert Stuart

When Madison left office in 1817 at age 65, he retired to Montpelier, not far from Jefferson's Monticello. As with both Washington and Jefferson, Madison left the presidency a poorer man than when he came in. His plantation experienced a steady financial collapse, due to price declines in tobacco and his stepson's mismanagement.[223] In his retirement, Madison occasionally became involved in public affairs, advising Andrew Jackson and other presidents.[224] He remained out of the public debate over the Missouri Compromise, though he privately complained about the North's opposition to the extension of slavery.[225] Madison had warm relations with all four of the major candidates in the 1824 presidential election, but, like Jefferson, largely stayed out of the race.[226] During Jackson's presidency, Madison publicly disavowed the Nullification movement and argued that no state had the right to secede.[227] Madison also helped Jefferson establish the University of Virginia.[228] In 1826, after the death of Jefferson, Madison was appointed as the second rector of the university. He retained the position as college chancellor for ten years until his death in 1836.

In 1829, at the age of 78, Madison was chosen as a representative to the Virginia Constitutional Convention for revision of the commonwealth's constitution. It was his last appearance as a statesman. Apportionment of adequate representation was the central issue at the convention for the western districts of Virginia. The increased population in the Piedmont and western parts of the state were not proportionately represented in the legislature. Western reformers also wanted to extend suffrage to all white men, in place of the prevailing property ownership requirement. Madison made modest gains but was disappointed at the failure of Virginians to extend suffrage to all white men.[229].</ref> In his later years, Madison became highly concerned about his historical legacy. He resorted to modifying letters and other documents in his possession, changing days and dates, adding and deleting words and sentences. By his late seventies, Madison's self-editing of his own archived letters and older materials had become almost an obsession. As an example, he edited a letter written to Jefferson criticizing Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette—Madison not only inked out original passages, but in other correspondence he even forged Jefferson's handwriting.[230].</ref> Historian Drew R. McCoy wrote that, "During the final six years of his life, amid a sea of personal [financial] troubles that were threatening to engulf him ... At times mental agitation issued in physical collapse. For the better part of a year in 1831 and 1832 he was bedridden, if not silenced ... Literally sick with anxiety, he began to despair of his ability to make himself understood by his fellow citizens."[231].</ref>

### Death[edit | edit source]

File:James Madison gravestone IMG 4299.JPG

Madison's gravestone at Montpelier after his final years of failing health in the 1830s

Madison's health slowly deteriorated through the early-to-mid-1830s. By coincidence, the Fourth of July was the day of the year on which former presidents Jefferson, Adams, and Monroe had all died. In his final week, his doctors advised Madison to take stimulants which might prolong his life to July 4, 1836. However, Madison refused.[232][233] He died of congestive heart failure at Montpelier on the morning of June 28, 1836, at the age of 85.[234] According to one common account of his final moments, he was given his breakfast, which he tried eating but was unable to swallow. His favorite niece, who sat by to keep him company, asked him, "What is the matter, Uncle James?" Madison died immediately after he replied, "Nothing more than a change of mind, my dear."[235] He was buried in the family cemetery at Montpelier.[223] He was one of the last prominent members of the Revolutionary War generation to die.[224] His last will and testament left significant sums to the American Colonization Society, Princeton, and the University of Virginia, as well as $30,000 ($897,000 in 2021) to his wife, Dolley. Left with a smaller sum than Madison had intended, Dolley suffered financial troubles until her death in 1849.[236] In the 1840s Dolley sold Montpelier, its remaining slaves, and the furnishings to pay off outstanding debts. Paul Jennings, one of Madison's younger slaves, later recalled in his memoir,

> In the last days of her life, before Congress purchased her husband's papers, she was in a state of absolute poverty, and I think sometimes suffered for the necessaries of life. While I was a servant to Mr. Webster, he often sent me to her with a market-basket full of provisions, and told me whenever I saw anything in the house that I thought she was in need of, to take it to her. I often did this, and occasionally gave her small sums from my own pocket, though I had years before bought my freedom of her.[237]

## Political and religious views[edit | edit source]

### Federalism[edit | edit source]

External video

File:Nuvola apps kaboodle.svg Booknotes interview with Lance Banning on The Sacred Fire of Liberty: James Madison and the Founding of the Federal Republic, February 11, 1996, C-SPAN

During his first stint in Congress in the 1780s, Madison came to favor amending the Articles of Confederation to provide for a stronger central government.[238] In the 1790s, he led the opposition to Hamilton's centralizing policies and the Alien and Sedition Acts.[239] According to historian Ron Chernow, Madison's support of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions in the 1790s "was a breathtaking evolution for a man who had pleaded at the Constitutional Convention that the federal government should possess a veto over state laws".[117]

### Religion[edit | edit source]

File:Nat-bap-windows.png

Due to his support for religious liberty, James Madison (upper left) is honored alongside early U.S. Baptist figures in a stained glass window in National Baptist Memorial Church, Washington, D.C.

Although baptized as an Anglican and educated by Presbyterian clergymen,[240] young Madison was an avid reader of English deist tracts. [241] As an adult, Madison paid little attention to religious matters. Though most historians have found little indication of his religious leanings after he left college,[242] some scholars indicate he leaned toward deism.[243][244] Others maintain that Madison accepted Christian tenets and formed his outlook on life with a Christian world view.[245] Regardless of his own religious beliefs, Madison believed in religious liberty, and he advocated for Virginia's disestablishment of religious institutions sponsored by the state.[246] He also opposed the appointments of chaplains for Congress and the armed forces, arguing that the appointments produce religious exclusion as well as political disharmony.[247][248]

### Slavery[edit | edit source]

See also: James Madison and slavery

Madison grew up on a plantation that made use of slave labor and he viewed slavery as a necessary part of the Southern economy, though he was troubled by the instability of a society that depended on a large slave population.[249] Although Madison had supported a republican form of government, he believed that slavery had caused the South to become aristocratic. Madison believed that slaves were human property, while he opposed slavery intellectually.[250]

Madison initially opposed the 20-year delay in ending the foreign slave trade. However, he eventually accepted it as a necessary compromise to get the South to ratify the constitution.[251] He also proposed that apportionment in the House of Representatives be according to each state's free and slave population, eventually leading to the adoption of the Three-fifths Compromise.[252] Madison supported the extension of slavery into the West during the Missouri crisis of 1819–1821.[253] He believed that former slaves were unlikely to successfully integrate into Southern society. In the late 1780s, he became interested in the idea of African-Americans establishing colonies in Africa,[254] and he later served as the president of the American Colonization Society, which founded the settlement of Liberia for former slaves.[255]

Madison was referred to as a "garden-variety slaveholder" by historian Elizabeth Dowling Taylor. Madison abstained from excessive cruelty to slaves, to avoid criticism from peers, but worked his slaves from dawn to dusk, six days a week, allowing Sundays off for rest.[256] By 1801, Madison owned slightly more than 100 slaves at Montpelier. During the 1820s and 1830s, Madison was forced by debts to sell land and slaves. In 1836, at the time of Madison's death, he owned 36 taxable slaves.[257] Madison did not free any of his slaves, either during his lifetime or in his will.[253][250]

## Legacy[edit | edit source]

File:James madison-Age82-Edit1.jpg

Portrait of Madison after his health began to fail, age 82, c. 1833

### Historical reputation[edit | edit source]

One of the Founding Fathers of the United States, Madison had a wide influence on upon the founding of the nation and upon the early development of American constitutional government and foreign policy. Historian J. C. A. Stagg writes that "in some ways—because he was on the winning side of every important issue facing the young nation from 1776 to 1816—Madison was the most successful and possibly the most influential of all the Founding Fathers."[258] Though he helped found a major political party and served as the fourth president, his legacy has largely been defined by his contributions to the Constitution; even in his own life he was hailed as the "Father of the Constitution".[259] Law professor Noah Feldman writes that Madison "invented and theorized the modern ideal of an expanded, federal constitution that combines local self-government with an overarching national order".[260] Feldman adds that Madison's "model of liberty-protecting constitutional government" is "the most influential American idea in global political history".[260][h]

Many historians have criticized Madison's tenure as president.[263] In 1968, Henry Steele Commager and Richard B. Morris said the conventional view of Madison was of an "incapable President" who "mismanaged an unnecessary war".[264] A 2006 poll of historians ranked Madison's failure to prevent the War of 1812 as the sixth-worst mistake made by a sitting president.[265] Regarding Madison's consistency and adaptability of policy making during his many years of political acitivy, historian Gordon S. Wood says that Lance Banning, as in his Sacred Fire of Liberty (1995), is the "only present-day scholar to maintain that Madison did not change his views in the 1790s".[266] During and after the War of 1812, Madison came to support several policies he had opposed in the 1790s, including the national bank, a strong navy, and direct taxes.[267] Wood notes that many historians struggle to understand Madison, but Wood looks at him in the terms of Madison's own times—as a nationalist but one with a different conception of nationalism than that of the Federalists.[266] Gary Rosen uses other approaches to suggest Madison's consistency.[268] Historian Garry Wills wrote, "Madison's claim on our admiration does not rest on a perfect consistency, any more than it rests on his presidency. He has other virtues. ... As a framer and defender of the Constitution he had no peer. ... No man could do everything for the country—not even Washington. Madison did more than most, and did some things better than any. That was quite enough."[269].</ref>

### Memorials[edit | edit source]

Main article: List of memorials to James Madison

Montpelier, the Madison family's plantation, has been designated a National Historic Landmark. The James Madison Memorial Building is part of the United States Library of Congress and serves as the official memorial to Madison.[270] In 1986, Congress created the James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation as part of the bicentennial celebration of the Constitution.[271] Other examples include Madison, Wisconsin and Madison County, Alabama[272][273] which were both named for Madison, as were Madison Square Garden, James Madison University, and the USS James Madison.[274][275][276][277]

## Explanatory notes[edit | edit source]

1. ^ a b Vice President Clinton and Vice President Gerry both died in office. Neither was replaced for the remainder of their respective terms, as the Constitution did not have a provision for filling a vice presidential vacancy prior to the adoption of the Twenty-fifth Amendment in 1967.[1]
2. ^ (O.S. March 5, 1750)
3. ^ After the ratification of the Articles of Confederation in 1781, the Second Continental Congress became the Congress of the Confederation.[34]
4. ^ Portions of the Bill of Rights would later be incorporated against the states.[85]
5. ^ One of the two unratified amendments became part of the Constitution in 1992 as the Twenty-seventh Amendment. The other unratified amendment, known as the Congressional Apportionment Amendment, is technically still pending before the states.[87]
6. ^ The Democratic–Republican Party was often referred to as the "Republican Party". It was a separate entity from the later Republican Party, which was founded in the 1850s.[95]
7. ^ Because the Constitution requires presidential electors to vote for at least one individual from outside their home state, electors from Virginia would not have been able to vote for both Washington and Jefferson.[97]
8. ^ Various ranking by historians, associations and political scientists tend to assess Madison as an above-average president and have ranked Madison as highly as the twelfth best president.[261] Historian Gordon Wood commends Madison for his steady leadership during the war and resolve to avoid expanding the president's power, noting one contemporary's observation that the war was conducted "without one trial for treason, or even one prosecution for libel".[262]

## References[edit | edit source]

1. ^ Billias 1976, p. 329.
2. ^ a b c Ketcham 2002, p. 57.
3. ^ Ketcham 1990, p. 5.
4. ^ a b "The Life of James Madison". James Madison's Montpelier. Retrieved October 21, 2017.
5. ^ Ketcham 1990, p. 12.
6. ^ a b Ketcham 2003, pp. 370–371.
7. ^ Boyd-Rush, Dorothy. "Molding a founding father". Montpelier. Retrieved March 25, 2013.
8. ^ "The Life of James Madison". The Montpelier Foundation. Retrieved February 14, 2017.
9. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 3–7.
10. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 5–6.
11. ^ Ketcham 2003, p. 35.
12. ^ Ketcham 2003, p. 34.
13. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 4–5.
14. ^ Ketcham 1990, p. 51.
15. ^ Ball 2017, p. 45-46.
16. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 7–8.
17. ^ Bilder., Mary Sarah (2010). "James Madison, Law Student and Demi-Lawye". Law and History Review. 28 (2): 390–391. doi:10.1017/S0738248010000052. S2CID 143805768. Retrieved January 4, 2021.
18. ^ "The Life of James Madison". montpelier.org. Retrieved October 24, 2020.
19. ^ McCullough 2006, p. 21.
20. ^ Ketcham 2002, p. 58.
21. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 17–18.
22. ^ Edwards 1984, p. 43.
23. ^ Edwards 1984, p. 322.
24. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 10–14.
25. ^ a b Stagg, J.A., ed. (October 4, 2016). "James Madison: Life Before the Presidency". University of Virginia Miller Center. Retrieved February 14, 2017.
26. ^ Wills 2002, pp. 12–13.
27. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 14–15.
28. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 25–27.
29. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 48–49, 59–60.
30. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 65–66.
31. ^ Library of Congress, pp. 506–507.
32. ^ Coelho 2013, p. 61.
33. ^ Mason 1970, p. 274-289.
34. ^ Ferling 2003, pp. 230–232.
35. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 96–97.
36. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 96–98.
37. ^ Ketcham 2003, pp. 120–123.
38. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, p. xxiv.
39. ^ Wills 2002, pp. 17–19.
40. ^ Feldman 2017, p. 70.
41. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 96–97, 128–130.
42. ^ Wood 2011, p. 104.
43. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 129–130.
44. ^ Rutland 1987, p. 14.
45. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 136–137.
46. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 56–57, 74–75.
47. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 98–99, 121–122.
48. ^ Ketcham 2003, pp. 177–179.
49. ^ Robinson 1999, p. 117.
50. ^ Feldman 2017, p. 107.
51. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 150–151.
52. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 140–141.
53. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 115–117.
54. ^ Wills 2002, pp. 25–27.
55. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 164–166.
56. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 177–178.
57. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 179–180.
58. ^ Wills 2002, pp. 31–35.
59. ^ "Federalist No. 10". Hanover College. Retrieved 16 March 2021.
60. ^ This scheme of division, discussing Papers No. 2 through No. 14 as dealing with the utility of the UNION, is adapted from Charles K. Kesler's introduction to The Federalist Papers (New York: Signet Classic, 1999) pp. 15–17.
61. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 208–209.
62. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 179–180.
63. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 231–233.
64. ^ Wills 2002, pp. 35–37.
65. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 239–240.
66. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 182–183.
67. ^ "Presidential Election of 1789". Mount Vernon, Virginia: Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, George Washington's Mount Vernon. Archived from the original on January 14, 2016. Retrieved July 14, 2017.
68. ^ a b c Wills 2002, pp. 38–39.
69. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 247–248, 251–252.
70. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 252–253.
71. ^ Labunski 2006, pp. 148–150.
72. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 189–193, 203.
73. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 258–259.
74. ^ Bordewich 2016.
75. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 213–217.
76. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 217–220.
77. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 195–197.
78. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 264, 267, 272–274.
79. ^ a b c Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 197–199.
80. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 267–269.
81. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 270–271.
82. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 274–275.
83. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 275–276.
84. ^ Labunski 2006, p. 232.
85. ^ Labunski 2006, p. 198.
86. ^ "The Charters of Freedom: The Bill of Rights". National Archives and Records Administration. October 31, 2015. Retrieved February 16, 2017.
87. ^ Thomas, Kenneth R., ed. (2013). "The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis of Cases Decided by the Supreme Court of the U.S." (PDF). GPO. p. 49. Retrieved February 16, 2017.
88. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 207–208.
89. ^ a b Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 221–224.
90. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 199–211.
91. ^ Feldman 2017, p. 343.
92. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 343–347.
93. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 324–326.
94. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 366–367.
95. ^ Meacham, 2012, pp. 405–406.
96. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 279–280.
97. ^ Feldman 2017, p. 369.
98. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 369–370.
99. ^ a b Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 305–306.
100. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 261–262.
101. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 373–374.
102. ^ Varg 1963, p. 74.
103. ^ a b Wills 2002, pp. 38–44.
104. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 396–398.
105. ^ Ketcham 1990, p. 377.
106. ^ Ketcham 2003, pp. 376–380.
107. ^ a b "The Life of James Madison". Montpelier.org. Retrieved November 11, 2020.
108. ^ a b Feldman 2017, pp. 479–480.
109. ^ a b Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 321–322.
110. ^ Ketcham 2003, p. 386.
111. ^ Mummolo, Jonathan (June 11, 2007). "African American Seeks to Prove A Genetic Link to James Madison". The Washington Post. Retrieved December 27, 2021.
112. ^ Thompson, Krissah (November 14, 2017). "Her mother said they descended from a president and a slave. What would their DNA say?". The Washington Post. Retrieved December 27, 2021.
113. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 317–318.
114. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 408–400.
115. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 411–414.
116. ^ Wills 2002, pp. 48–49.
117. ^ a b Chernow 2004, pp. 571–74.
118. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 415–417.
119. ^ "Explore History At Our House". Montpelier.org. Retrieved November 11, 2020.
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121. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 424–425.
122. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 428–430.
123. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 433–436.
124. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 438–439.
125. ^ Wills 2002, pp. 50–51.
126. ^ McDonald 1976, pp. 36–38.
127. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 373–374.
128. ^ McDonald 1976, pp. 42–44.
129. ^ Wood 2009, pp. 293–296.
130. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 465–466.
131. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 443–444.
132. ^ Wood 2009, pp. 357–359, 366–367.
133. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 374–376.
134. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 382–389.
135. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 463–465.
136. ^ Ketcham 2003, p. 422.
137. ^ Ketcham 1990, pp. 419–421.
138. ^ Wills 2002, pp. 51–52.
139. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 462–463.
140. ^ McDonald 1976, pp. 100–101.
141. ^ a b Wood 2009, pp. 640–642.
142. ^ Wills 2002, pp. 81–84.
143. ^ Wood 2009, pp. 644–649.
144. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 493–495.
145. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 494–495.
146. ^ Wood 2009, pp. 652–657.
147. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 457–458.
148. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 438–439.
149. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 434–435.
150. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 496–497.
151. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 457–459.
152. ^ Feldman 2017, p. 498.
153. ^ Rutland 1990, p. 5.
154. ^ Rutland 1990, pp. 32–33, 51, 55.
155. ^ a b Ketcham 2002, pp. 61–62.
156. ^ Rutland 1990, pp. 32–33.
157. ^ Ketcham 2002, p. 62.
158. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 524–527.
159. ^ Wills 2002, pp. 64–65.
160. ^ a b Rutland 1990, p. 20.
161. ^ Rutland 1990, p. 68–70.
162. ^ Rutland 1990, p. 13.
163. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 508–512.
164. ^ Rutland 1990, pp. 62–64.
165. ^ Rutland 1990, pp. 64–66, 81.
166. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 532–537.
167. ^ Risjord, Norman K. (1961). "1812: Conservatives, War Hawks and the Nation's Honor". The William and Mary Quarterly. 18 (2): 196–210. doi:10.2307/1918543. JSTOR 1918543.
168. ^ a b c Wills 2002, pp. 97–98.
169. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 543–545.
170. ^ Rutland 1990, p. 159.
171. ^ Ketcham 1990, p. 509.
172. ^ a b c d e f Ketcham 2002, p. 65.
173. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 551–552.
174. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 548–550.
175. ^ Rutland 1990, pp. 126–127.
176. ^ Rutland 1990, pp. 92–93.
177. ^ "James Madison: Campaigns and Elections". Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016. Retrieved February 14, 2017.
178. ^ Wills 2002, pp. 115–116.
179. ^ "1812 Presidential Election". The American Presidency Project. Retrieved February 14, 2017.
180. ^ Wood 2009, pp. 682–683.
181. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 555–557.
182. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 554, 566–567.
183. ^ Roosevelt 1999, p. 147–152.
184. ^ Rutland 1990, p. 133.
185. ^ Rutland 1990, pp. 138–139, 150.
186. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 569–571.
187. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 579–585.
188. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 586–588.
189. ^ Ketcham 2002, p. 67.
190. ^ Ketcham 2002, pp. 66–67.
191. ^ Rutland 1990, pp. 165–167.
192. ^ Wills 2002, pp. 130–131.
193. ^ Rutland 1990, pp. 179–180.
194. ^ Rutland 1990, p. 185.
195. ^ Rutland 1990, pp. 186–188.
196. ^ Rutland 1987, p. 188.
197. ^ Rutland 1990, pp. 192–201.
198. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 547–548.
199. ^ Wills 2002, pp. 145–146, 150.
200. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 599–600.
201. ^ Rutland 1990, pp. 211–212.
202. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 559–560.
203. ^ a b Rutland 1990, pp. 195–198.
204. ^ a b Howe 2007, pp. 82–84.
205. ^ Rutland 1990, pp. 198–199.
206. ^ Rutland 1990, pp. 204–207.
207. ^ Owens 2007, p. 200.
208. ^ Owens 2007, pp. 201–203.
209. ^ Langguth 2006, p. 166.
210. ^ Langguth 2006, p. 167.
211. ^ Owens 2007, p. 214.
212. ^ Kappler 1904, pp. 101–102.
213. ^ Owens 2007, pp. 201–203; Kappler 1904, pp. 101–102.
214. ^ Owens 2007, p. 205.
215. ^ a b c Landry 2016.
216. ^ Langguth 2006, p. 165.
217. ^ Rutland 1990, p. 37.
218. ^ a b c Rutland 1990, pp. 199–200.
219. ^ a b Langguth 2006, pp. 166–169; Owens 2007, p. 214.
220. ^ Green 1982, p. 43.
221. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 559–563.
222. ^ Feldman 2017, p. 616.
223. ^ a b "The Life of James Madison". Montpelier Station, Virginia: James Madison's Montpelier. Retrieved December 18, 2017.
224. ^ a b Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 608–609.
225. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 578–581.
226. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 589–591.
227. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 603–604.
228. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 585.
229. ^ Keysaar 2009, pp. 26–27.
230. ^ Wills 2002, p. 162.
231. ^ McCoy 1989, p. 151.
232. ^ "The Health of James Madison". HealthGuidance.org. Retrieved January 2, 2022.
233. ^ "James Madison". Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia. Retrieved June 24, 2022.
234. ^ Ketcham 1990, pp. 669–670.
235. ^ Magnet 2013, pp. 321–322.
236. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 609–611.
237. ^ "Paul Jennings" Archived October 14, 2021, at the Wayback Machine, Documents of the American South, University of North Carolina
238. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 85–86.
239. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 232–234.
240. ^ Feldman 2017, p. 7.
241. ^ Hoffer 2006, p. 363.
242. ^ Hutson 2003, p. 156.
243. ^ Miroff 2011, p. 149.
244. ^ Corbett 2013, p. 78.
245. ^ Ketcham 1990, p. 47.
246. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 106–107.
247. ^ Madison, James (1817). "Detached Memoranda". Founders Constitution. Retrieved February 19, 2017.
248. ^ Madison 1908, p. 432.
249. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 26, 200–202.
250. ^ a b Watts 1990, p. 1289.
251. ^ "James Madison and Slavery".
252. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 156–157.
253. ^ a b Guyatt, Nicholas (June 6, 2019). "How Proslavery Was the Constitution?". New York Review of Books.
254. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 200–201.
255. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 607–608.
256. ^ Hopkins 2019.
257. ^ Broadwater 2012, p. 188.
258. ^ Stagg, J.C.A. (October 4, 2016). "James Madison: Impact and Legacy". Miller Center. University of Virginia. Retrieved February 8, 2019.
259. ^ Feldman 2017, pp. 625–626.
260. ^ a b Feldman 2017, pp. 627–628.
261. ^ Rottinghaus, Brandon; Vaughn, Justin S. (February 19, 2018). "How Does Trump Stack Up Against the Best – and Worst – Presidents?". New York Times. Retrieved May 4, 2019.
262. ^ Wood 2009, pp. 697–699.
263. ^ Max J. Skidmore, Presidential Performance: A Comprehensive Review (2004) pp. 45–56 summarizes the historiography.
264. ^ Henry Steele Commager and Richard B. Morris, "Editors Introduction," to Marshall Smelser, The Democratic Republic: 1801–1815 (1968) p. xii
265. ^ "Scholars rate worst presidential errors". USA Today. AP. February 18, 2006. Retrieved August 31, 2018.
266. ^ a b Wood, Gordon S. (2006). "Is there a James Madison Problem? in "Liberty and American Experience in the Eighteenth Century", Womersley, David (ed.)". Liberty Fund. p. 425. Retrieved May 2, 2012.
267. ^ Burstein & Isenberg 2010, pp. 521–522.
268. ^ Rosen 1999, p. 2–4, 6–9, 140–175.
269. ^ Wills 2002, p. 164.
270. ^ National Capital Planning Commission (2012). James Madison Memorial Building of the Library of Congress. Memorials in Washington DC. Retrieved May 4, 2021.
271. ^ "Justitia US Law". Retrieved January 2, 2022.
272. ^ "Violet Edwards elected Madison County's first Black woman commissioner". Real Time Alabama. July 17, 2020. Retrieved November 7, 2020.
273. ^ Gannett 1905, p. 196.
274. ^ Mendelsohn 1995, pp. 711–712.
275. ^ "Life in Early Madison". Wisconsin Historical Society. 2012-06-27. Archived from the original on December 21, 2018. Retrieved 2021-06-24.
276. ^ "CIA memo confirms nuclear sub crash". BBC. 25 January 2017.
277. ^ Weaver, Matthew (2017-01-25). "Scottish cold war nuclear submarine collision kept secret for 43 years". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2017-04-30.

## Works cited[edit | edit source]

* Ball, Terence (2017). James Madison. Taylor & Francis.
* Billias, George (1976). Elbridge Gerry, Founding Father and Republican Statesman. McGraw-Hill Publishers. ISBN 0-07-005269-7.
* Bordewich, Fergus M. (2016). The First Congress: How James Madison, George Washington, and a Group of Extraordinary Men Invented the Government. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4516-9193-1.
* Broadwater, Jeff. (2012). James Madison: A Son of Virginia and a Founder of a Nation. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-3530-2.
* Burstein, Andrew; Isenberg, Nancy (2010). Madison and Jefferson. Random House. ISBN 978-1400067282.
* Edwards, David L. (1983). Christian England. Volume 2: From the Reformation to the 18th Century. London: Collins.
* Chernow, Ron. (2004). Alexander Hamilton. Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14-303475-9. Retrieved February 16, 2017.
* Coelho, Chris (2013), Timothy Matlack, Scribe of the Declaration of Independence, McFarland, p. 61, ISBN 978-0-7864-7443-1
* Corbett, Michael (2013). Politics and Religion in the United States. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-57975-3. Retrieved February 14, 2017.
* 
- (1984). Christian England. Volume 3: From the 18th Century to the First World War. London: Collins.
* Feldman, Noah (2017). The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President. Random House. ISBN 978-0-8129-9275-5.
* Ferling, John (2003). A Leap in the Dark: The Struggle to Create the American Republic. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-515924-0.
* Gannett, Henry (1905). The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States. U.S. Government Printing Office.
* Green, Michael D. (1982). The Politics of Indian Removal (Paperback). University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-7015-2.
* Hoffer, Peter Charles (2006). The Brave New World: A History of Early America. Johns Hopkins Univ. Press. p. 363\. ISBN 978-0-8018-8483-2. Retrieved February 14, 2017.
* Hopkins, Callie (August 28, 2019). "The Enslaved Household of President James Madison". whitehousehistory.org. Retrieved December 12, 2021.
* Howe, Daniel Walker (2007). What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America 1815–1848. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-507894-7.
* Hutson, James H. (2003). Forgotten Features of the Founding: The Recovery of Religious Themes in the Early American Republic. Lexington Books. ISBN 978-0-7391-0570-2.
* Jackson, Kenneth T., ed. (1995). The Encyclopedia of New York City. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0300055366.
* Kappler, Charles J. (1904). Indian Affairs. Laws and Treaties (PDF). Vol. II (Treaties). Washington: Government Printing Office.
* Ketcham, Ralph (1990). James Madison: A Biography (paperback ed.). University of Virginia Press. ISBN 978-0-8139-1265-3.
* Ketcham, Ralph (2002). "James Madison". In Graff, Henry F. (ed.). The Presidents A Reference History (Third ed.). Charles Scribner's Sons. ISBN 978-0-684-31226-2.
* Ketcham, Ralph (2003). James Madison: A Biography. American Political Biography Press.
* Keysaar, Alexander (2009). The Right to Vote. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-02969-3.
* Labunski, Richard (2006). James Madison and the Struggle for the Bill of Rights. Oxford Univ. Press.
* Landry, Alysa (January 26, 2016). "James Madison: Pushed Intermarriage Between Settlers and Indians". indiancountrytoday.com. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
* Langguth, A. J. (2006). Union 1812:The Americans Who Fought the Second War of Independence. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-7432-2618-9.
* A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation : U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates 1774-1875. Library of Congress. 2003. "Tuesday July 2, 1776 [...] Resolved, That these United colonies are, and, of right, ought to be, Free and Independent States; that they are absolved of all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connexion between them and the state of Great Britain, is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."
* McCullough, Noah (2006). The Essential Book of Presidential Trivia. Random House Digital, Inc. ISBN 978-1-4000-6482-3. Retrieved February 14, 2017.
* Magnet, Myron (2013). The Founders at Home: The Building of America, 1735–1817. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-24021-4.
* Mason, George (1970). Rutland, Robert A. (ed.). The Papers of George Mason, 1725–1792. Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press. pp. 274–289. ISBN 9780807811344.
* Meacham, Jon (2012). Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power. Random House LLC. ISBN 978-0679645368.
* Mendelsohn, Joyce (1995). "Madison Square". In Jackson, Kenneth T. (ed.). The Encyclopedia of New York City. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0300055366.
* Miroff, Bruce; et al. (2011). Debating Democracy: A Reader in American Politics. Cengage Learning. ISBN 978-0-495-91347-4. Retrieved February 14, 2017.
* McCoy, Drew R. (1989). The Last of the Fathers: James Madison and the Republican Legacy. Cambridge University Press.
* Watts, Steven (1990). "The Last of the Fathers: James Madison and the Republican Legacy". The American Historical Review. 95 (4). doi:10.2307/2163682. JSTOR 2163682. Review.
* McDonald, Forrest (1976). The Presidency of Thomas Jefferson. University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-0330-5.
* Madison, James (1908). The Writings of James Madison: 1808–1819. G.P. Putnam's Sons.
* Owens, Robert M. (2007). Mr. Jefferson's Hammer: William Henry Harrison and the Origins of American Indian Policy. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0-8061-3842-8.
* Robinson, Raymond H. (1999). "The Marketing of an Icon". George Washington: American Symbol. ISBN 978-1-55595-148-1. "Figure 56 John Henry Hintermeister (American 1869–1945) Signing of the Constitution, 1925...Alternatively labeled Title to Freedom and the Foundation of American Government..."."
* Roosevelt, Theodore (1999). The Naval War of 1812. Modern Library War. ISBN 978-0-37-575419-7.
* Rosen, Gary (1999). American Compact: James Madison and the Problem of the Founding. University Press of Kansas.
* Rutland, Robert A. (1987). James Madison: The Founding Father. Macmillan Publishing Co. ISBN 978-0-02-927601-3.
* Rutland, Robert A. (1990). The Presidency of James Madison. University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-0465-4.
* Wills, Garry (2002). James Madison. Times Books. ISBN 978-0-8050-6905-1.
* Wood, Gordon S. (2011). The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States. The Penguin Press. ISBN 978-1-59420-290-2.
* Wood, Gordon S. (2009). Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-199-83246-0.
* Varg, Paul A. (1963). Foreign Policies of the Founding Fathers. Michigan State University Press.

## Further reading[edit | edit source]

Further information: Bibliography of James Madison

* "Montpelier: The People, The Place, The Idea". montpelier.org. Archived from the original on July 24, 2020. Retrieved April 29, 2020.
* Stewart, David (2007). The Summer of 1787: The Men Who Invented the Constitution. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9780743286930.

## External links[edit | edit source]

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James Madison

* 4th President of the United States (1809–1817)
* 5th U.S. Secretary of State (1801–1809)
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* 1814
* 1815
* 1816)
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Other noted
accomplisments|

* Co-founder, American Whig Society
* Co-author, George Washington's Farewell Address
* Supervised the Louisiana Purchase
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Other writings|

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Life|

* Early life and career
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* 1790
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* 1794
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* 1812

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Related|

* Age of Enlightenment
* American Enlightenment
* Marbury v. Madison
* National Gazette
* Paul Jennings
* Madisonian model
* Cognitive Madisonianism
* American Philosophical Society
* The American Museum magazine
* Virginia dynasty

Family|

* Dolley Madison (wife)
* John Payne Todd (stepson)
* James Madison Sr. (father)
* William Madison (brother)
* Ambrose Madison (grandfather)

* ← Thomas Jefferson
* James Monroe →

* Category Category

Offices and distinctions

| U.S. House of Representatives

New constituency |  Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Virginia's 5th congressional district
1789–1793  | Succeeded by

George Hancock

Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Virginia's 15th congressional district
1793–1797  | Succeeded by

John Dawson

Political offices
Preceded by

John Marshall

|  United States Secretary of State
1801–1809  | Succeeded by

Robert Smith

Preceded by

Thomas Jefferson

|  President of the United States
1809–1817  | Succeeded by

James Monroe

Party political offices
Preceded by

Thomas Jefferson

|  Democratic–Republican nominee for President of the United States
1808, 1812 | Succeeded by

James Monroe

Articles related to James Madison

* v
* t
* e

Presidents of the United States

Presidents and
presidencies|

1. George Washington (1789–1797)
2. John Adams (1797–1801)
3. Thomas Jefferson (1801–1809)
4. James Madison (1809–1817)
5. James Monroe (1817–1825)
6. John Quincy Adams (1825–1829)
7. Andrew Jackson (1829–1837)
8. Martin Van Buren (1837–1841)
9. William Henry Harrison (1841)
10. John Tyler (1841–1845)
11. James K. Polk (1845–1849)
12. Zachary Taylor (1849–1850)
13. Millard Fillmore (1850–1853)
14. Franklin Pierce (1853–1857)
15. James Buchanan (1857–1861)
16. Abraham Lincoln (1861–1865)
17. Andrew Johnson (1865–1869)
18. Ulysses S. Grant (1869–1877)
19. Rutherford B. Hayes (1877–1881)
20. James A. Garfield (1881)
21. Chester A. Arthur (1881–1885)
22. Grover Cleveland (1885–1889)
23. Benjamin Harrison (1889–1893)
24. Grover Cleveland (1893–1897)
25. William McKinley (1897–1901)
26. Theodore Roosevelt (1901–1909)
27. William Howard Taft (1909–1913)
28. Woodrow Wilson (1913–1921)
29. Warren G. Harding (1921–1923)
30. Calvin Coolidge (1923–1929)
31. Herbert Hoover (1929–1933)
32. Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933–1945)
33. Harry S. Truman (1945–1953)
34. Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953–1961)
35. John F. Kennedy (1961–1963)
36. Lyndon B. Johnson (1963–1969)
37. Richard Nixon (1969–1974)
38. Gerald Ford (1974–1977)
39. Jimmy Carter (1977–1981)
40. Ronald Reagan (1981–1989)
41. George H. W. Bush (1989–1993)
42. Bill Clinton (1993–2001)
43. George W. Bush (2001–2009)
44. Barack Obama (2009–2017)
45. Donald Trump (2017–2021)
46. Joe Biden (2021–present)

Presidency
timelines|

* Washington
* McKinley
* T. Roosevelt
* Taft
* Wilson
* Harding
* Coolidge
* Hoover
* F. D. Roosevelt
* Truman
* Eisenhower
* Kennedy
* L. B. Johnson
* Nixon
* Ford
* Carter
* Reagan
* G. H. W. Bush
* Clinton
* G. W. Bush
* Obama
* Trump
* Biden

* Category Category
* Commons
* List-Class article List

* v
* t
* e

Democratic-Republican Party

* Anti-Administration Party
* First Party System
* Jeffersonian democracy
* Era of Good Feelings
* Presidency of Thomas Jefferson
* Presidency of James Madison
* Presidency of James Monroe
* Tertium quids

Presidential
tickets|

* 1796: Jefferson/Burr
* 1800: Jefferson/Burr
* 1804: Jefferson/Clinton
* 1808: Madison/Clinton
* 1812: Madison/Gerry
* 1816: Monroe/Tompkins
* 1820: Monroe/Tompkins
* 1824: Adams/Calhoun
* Jackson/Calhoun
* Crawford/Macon
* Clay/Sanford

U.S. House
speakers|

* Frederick Muhlenberg (1793–1795)
* Nathaniel Macon (1801–1807)
* Joseph Bradley Varnum (1807–1811)
* Henry Clay (1811–1814)
* Langdon Cheves (1814–1815)
* Henry Clay (1815–1820)
* John W. Taylor (1820–1821)
* Philip P. Barbour (1821–1823)
* Henry Clay (1823–1825)

U.S. Cabinet|

| State|

* Thomas Jefferson (1790–1794)
* Levi Lincoln Sr. (1801)
* James Madison (1801–1809)
* Robert Smith (1809–1811)
* James Monroe (1811–1817)
* John Graham (1817)
* John Quincy Adams (1817–1825)

|

Treasury|

* Albert Gallatin (1801–1814)
* George W. Campbell (1814)
* Alexander J. Dallas (1814–1816)
* William Jones (1816)
* William H. Crawford (1816–1825)

War|

* Henry Dearborn (1801–1809)
* William Eustis (1809–1813)
* John Armstrong Jr. (1813–1814)
* James Monroe (1814–1815)
* Alexander J. Dallas (1815)
* William H. Crawford (1815–1816)
* George Graham (1816–1817)
* John C. Calhoun (1817–1825)

Attorney General|

* Levi Lincoln Sr. (1801–1805)
* John Breckinridge (1805–1806)
* Caesar Augustus Rodney (1807–1811)
* William Pinkney (1811–1814)
* William Wirt (1817–1825)

Navy|

* Robert Smith (1801–1809)
* Paul Hamilton (1809–1813)
* William Jones (1813–1814)
* Benjamin Williams Crowninshield (1815–1818)
* Smith Thompson (1819–1823)
* Samuel L. Southard (1823–1825)

* v
* t
* e

Cabinet of President Thomas Jefferson (1801–1809)

Secretary of State|

* James Madison (1801–1809)

File:Thomas Jefferson by Rembrandt Peale, 1800.jpg

Secretary of the Treasury|

* Samuel Dexter (1801)
* Albert Gallatin (1801–1809)

Secretary of War|

* Henry Dearborn (1801–1809)

Attorney General|

* Levi Lincoln Sr. (1801–1805)
* John Breckinridge (1805–1806)
* Caesar Augustus Rodney (1807–1809)

Secretary of the Navy|

* Benjamin Stoddert (1801)
* Robert Smith (1801–1809)

* v
* t
* e

(<- 1804) 1808 United States presidential election (1812 ->)

Democratic-Republican Party|

| Nominees|

* President: James Madison
* Vice President: George Clinton (incumbent)

|

Other candidates|

* President: James Monroe
* George Clinton
* Vice President: Henry Dearborn
* John Quincy Adams

Federalist Party|

| Nominees|

* President: Charles Cotesworth Pinckney
* Vice President: Rufus King

|

* Other 1808 elections: House
* Senate

* v
* t
* e

(<- 1808) 1812 United States presidential election (1816 ->)

Democratic-Republican Party|

| Nominees|

* President: James Madison (incumbent)
* Vice President: Elbridge Gerry

|

Other candidates|

* DeWitt Clinton
* George Clinton

Federalist Party|

| Endorsee|

* President: DeWitt Clinton

|

Nominee|

* Vice President: Jared Ingersoll

Other candidates|

* John Marshall

Straight-Federalist Party|

| Nominee|

* President: Rufus King
* Vice President: William Richardson Davie

|

* Other 1812 elections: House
* Senate

* v
* t
* e

Cabinet of President James Madison (1809–1817)

Secretary of State|

* Robert Smith (1809–1811)
* James Monroe (1811–1817)

File:James Madison.jpg

Secretary of the Treasury|

* Albert Gallatin (1809–1814)
* George W. Campbell (1814)
* Alexander J. Dallas (1814–1816)
* William H. Crawford (1816–1817)

Secretary of War|

* William Eustis (1809–1813)
* John Armstrong Jr. (1813–1814)
* James Monroe (1814–1815)
* William H. Crawford (1815–1816)

Attorney General|

* Caesar Augustus Rodney (1809–1811)
* William Pinkney (1811–1814)
* Richard Rush (1814–1817)

Secretary of the Navy|

* Paul Hamilton (1809–1813)
* William Jones (1813–1814)
* Benjamin Williams Crowninshield (1814–1817)

* v
* t
* e

United States Secretaries of State

Secretary of Foreign Affairs
1781-1789|

* R. Livingston
* Jay

File:Flag of the United States Secretary of State.svg

Secretary of State
1789-present|

* Jefferson
* Randolph
* Pickering
* J. Marshall
* Madison
* Smith
* Monroe
* Adams
* Clay
* Van Buren
* E. Livingston
* McLane
* Forsyth
* Webster
* Upshur
* Calhoun
* Buchanan
* Clayton
* Webster
* Everett
* Marcy
* Cass
* Black
* Seward
* Washburne
* Fish
* Evarts
* Blaine
* Frelinghuysen
* Bayard
* Blaine
* Foster
* Gresham
* Olney
* Sherman
* Day
* Hay
* Root
* Bacon
* Knox
* Bryan
* Lansing
* Colby
* Hughes
* Kellogg
* Stimson
* Hull
* Stettinius
* Byrnes
* G. Marshall
* Acheson
* Dulles
* Herter
* Rusk
* Rogers
* Kissinger
* Vance
* Muskie
* Haig
* Shultz
* Baker
* Eagleburger
* Christopher
* trips
* Albright
* trips
* Powell
* trips
* Rice
* tenure
* trips
* Clinton
* tenure
* trips
* Kerry
* trips
* Tillerson
* trips
* Pompeo
* trips
* Blinken
* trips

List of international trips made by secretaries of state of the United States

* v
* t
* e

Hall of Fame for Great Americans inductees

* John Adams
* John Quincy Adams
* Jane Addams
* Louis Agassiz
* Susan B. Anthony
* John James Audubon
* George Bancroft
* Clara Barton
* Henry Ward Beecher
* Alexander Graham Bell
* Daniel Boone
* Edwin Booth
* Louis Brandeis
* Phillips Brooks
* William Cullen Bryant
* Luther Burbank
* Andrew Carnegie
* George Washington Carver
* William Ellery Channing
* Rufus Choate
* Henry Clay
* Grover Cleveland
* James Fenimore Cooper
* Peter Cooper
* Charlotte Cushman
* James Buchanan Eads
* Thomas Alva Edison
* Jonathan Edwards
* Ralph Waldo Emerson
* David Farragut
* Stephen Foster
* Benjamin Franklin
* Robert Fulton
* Josiah W. Gibbs
* William C. Gorgas
* Ulysses S. Grant
* Asa Gray
* Alexander Hamilton
* Nathaniel Hawthorne
* Joseph Henry
* Patrick Henry
* Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
* Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
* Mark Hopkins
* Elias Howe
* Washington Irving
* Andrew Jackson
* Thomas J. Jackson
* Thomas Jefferson
* John Paul Jones
* James Kent
* Sidney Lanier
* Robert E. Lee
* Abraham Lincoln
* Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
* James Russell Lowell
* Mary Lyon
* Edward MacDowell
* James Madison
* Horace Mann
* John Marshall
* Matthew Fontaine Maury
* Albert A. Michelson
* Maria Mitchell
* James Monroe
* Samuel F. B. Morse
* William T. G. Morton
* John Lothrop Motley
* Simon Newcomb
* Thomas Paine
* Alice Freeman Palmer
* Francis Parkman
* George Peabody
* William Penn
* Edgar Allan Poe
* Walter Reed
* Franklin D. Roosevelt
* Theodore Roosevelt
* Augustus Saint-Gaudens
* William Tecumseh Sherman
* John Philip Sousa
* Joseph Story
* Harriet Beecher Stowe
* Gilbert Stuart
* Sylvanus Thayer
* Henry David Thoreau
* Mark Twain
* Lillian Wald
* Booker T. Washington
* George Washington
* Daniel Webster
* George Westinghouse
* James McNeill Whistler
* Walt Whitman
* Eli Whitney
* John Greenleaf Whittier
* Emma Willard
* Frances Willard
* Roger Williams
* Woodrow Wilson
* Orville Wright
* Wilbur Wright

* v
* t
* e

Age of Enlightenment

Topics

* Atheism
* Capitalism
* Civil liberties
* Counter-Enlightenment
* Critical thinking
* Deism
* Democracy
* Empiricism
* Encyclopédistes
* Enlightened absolutism
* Free markets
* Haskalah
* Humanism
* Human rights
* Liberalism
* Liberté, égalité, fraternité
* Lumières
* Methodological skepticism
* Midlands
* Nationalism
* Natural philosophy
* Objectivity
* Rationality
* Rationalism
* Reason
* Reductionism
* Sapere aude
* Science
* Scientific method
* Socialism
* Universality
* Weimar Classicism

Thinkers

| England|

* Joseph Addison
* Anthony Ashley-Cooper
* Francis Bacon
* Jeremy Bentham
* Anthony Collins
* Edward Gibbon
* William Godwin
* James Harrington
* Robert Hooke
* Samuel Johnson
* John Locke
* John Milton
* Isaac Newton
* Alexander Pope
* Richard Price
* Joseph Priestley
* Joshua Reynolds
* Algernon Sidney
* Matthew Tindal
* John Trenchard
* Mary Wollstonecraft

|

France|

* Jean le Rond d'Alembert
* René Louis d'Argenson
* Pierre Bayle
* Pierre Beaumarchais
* Nicolas Chamfort
* Émilie du Châtelet
* Étienne Bonnot de Condillac
* Marquis de Condorcet
* René Descartes
* Denis Diderot
* Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle
* Olympe de Gouges
* Claude Adrien Helvétius
* Baron d'Holbach
* Louis de Jaucourt
* Julien Offray de La Mettrie
* Antoine Lavoisier
* Georges-Louis Leclerc
* Gabriel Bonnot de Mably
* Sylvain Maréchal
* Jean Meslier
* Montesquieu
* Étienne-Gabriel Morelly
* Blaise Pascal
* François Quesnay
* Guillaume Thomas François Raynal
* Marquis de Sade
* Anne Robert Jacques Turgot
* Voltaire

Geneva|

* Firmin Abauzit
* Charles Bonnet
* Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui
* Jean-Louis de Lolme
* Pierre Prévost
* Jean-Jacques Rousseau
* Antoine-Jacques Roustan
* Horace Bénédict de Saussure
* Jacob Vernes
* Jacob Vernet

Germany|

* Justus Henning Böhmer
* Carl Friedrich Gauss
* Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
* Johann Gottfried von Herder
* Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel
* Wilhelm von Humboldt
* Immanuel Kant
* Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
* Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
* Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
* Moses Mendelssohn
* Samuel von Pufendorf
* Friedrich Schiller
* Christian Thomasius
* Gabriel Wagner
* Christian Felix Weiße
* Adam Weishaupt
* Christoph Martin Wieland
* Thomas Wizenmann
* Christian Wolff

Greece|

* Neophytos Doukas
* Theoklitos Farmakidis
* Rigas Feraios
* Theophilos Kairis
* Adamantios Korais

Ireland|

* George Berkeley
* Robert Boyle
* Edmund Burke
* Jonathan Swift
* John Toland

Italy|

* Cesare Beccaria
* Gaetano Filangieri
* Ferdinando Galiani
* Luigi Galvani
* Antonio Genovesi
* Francesco Mario Pagano
* Giovanni Salvemini
* Pietro Verri
* Giambattista Vico

Netherlands|

* Balthasar Bekker
* Pieter de la Court
* Petrus Cunaeus
* Hugo Grotius
* François Hemsterhuis
* Christiaan Huygens
* Adriaan Koerbagh
* Frederik van Leenhof
* Antonie van Leeuwenhoek
* Bernard Nieuwentyt
* Baruch Spinoza
* Jan Swammerdam
* Hendrik Wyermars

Poland|

* Tadeusz Czacki
* Hugo Kołłątaj
* Stanisław Konarski
* Ignacy Krasicki
* Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz
* Stanisław August Poniatowski
* Jędrzej Śniadecki
* Stanisław Staszic
* Józef Wybicki
* Andrzej Stanisław Załuski
* Józef Andrzej Załuski

Portugal|

* Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo

Romania|

* Ion Budai-Deleanu
* Dinicu Golescu
* Petru Maior
* Samuil Micu-Klein
* Gheorghe Șincai

Russia|

* Catherine II
* Denis Fonvizin
* Antiochus Kantemir
* Mikhail Kheraskov
* Mikhail Lomonosov
* Nikolay Novikov
* Alexander Radishchev
* Yekaterina Vorontsova-Dashkova

Serbia|

* Dositej Obradović
* Avram Mrazović

Spain|

* José Cadalso
* Charles III
* Benito Jerónimo Feijóo y Montenegro
* Leandro Fernández de Moratín
* Valentin de Foronda
* Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos
* Martín Sarmiento
* Diego de Torres Villarroel

Scotland|

* James Beattie
* Joseph Black
* Hugh Blair
* James Boswell
* James Burnett
* Robert Burns
* William Cullen
* Adam Ferguson
* Thomas Gordon
* David Hume
* Francis Hutcheson
* James Hutton
* James Mill
* John Millar
* Isaac Newton
* William Ogilvie
* John Playfair
* Thomas Reid
* Adam Smith
* Dugald Stewart

United States|

* Benjamin Franklin
* Thomas Jefferson
* James Madison
* George Mason
* Thomas Paine

Romanticism →

* Category Category

* v
* t
* e

War of 1812

* Battles
* Campaigns
* Origins
* Chronology
* Results

People|

* Isaac Brock
* William Henry Harrison
* Andrew Jackson
* Francis Scott Key
* James Madison
* Edward Pakenham
* Robert Ross
* Lord Liverpool
* Laura Secord (Legacy Trail)
* Winfield Scott
* Tecumseh

Places|

* Fort Detroit/Shelby
* Illinois
* Indiana
* Kentucky

Prelude|

* Assassination of Spencer Perceval
* Declaration of war

Battles|

* Baltimore
* Beaver Dams
* Chateauguay
* Crysler's Farm
* Frenchtown
* Lundy's Lane
* New Orleans
* Queenston Heights
* Spur's Defeat
* Thames
* Washington

Songs|

* "The Bold Canadian"
* "The Hunters of Kentucky"
* "The Star-Spangled Banner"

Other|

* Books
* Opposition in United States
* War of 1812 Bicentennial

Related|

* Tecumseh's War
* Creek War
* Napoleonic Wars

* Category Category

* v
* t
* e

The Federalist Papers

Authors|

Alexander Hamilton (papers)
James Madison (papers)
John Jay (papers)

Papers|

* 1
* 2
* 3
* 4
* 5
* 6
* 7
* 8
* 9
* 10
* 11
* 12
* 13
* 14
* 15
* 16
* 17
* 18
* 19
* 20
* 21
* 22
* 23
* 24
* 25
* 26
* 27
* 28
* 29
* 30
* 31
* 32
* 33
* 34
* 35
* 36
* 37
* 38
* 39
* 40
* 41
* 42
* 43
* 44
* 45
* 46
* 47
* 48
* 49
* 50
* 51
* 52
* 53
* 54
* 55
* 56
* 57
* 58
* 59
* 60
* 61
* 62
* 63
* 64
* 65
* 66
* 67
* 68
* 69
* 70
* 71
* 72
* 73
* 74
* 75
* 76
* 77
* 78
* 79
* 80
* 81
* 82
* 83
* 84
* 85

Related|

* Constitution
* timeline
* The Independent Journal
* Publius Valerius Publicola
* Anti-Federalist Papers
* complete

* Category
* Portal:History
* The Federalist

* v
* t
* e

Signatories of the United States Constitution

Convention President|

* George Washington

File:Constitution of the United States, page 4.jpg

New Hampshire|

* John Langdon
* Nicholas Gilman

Massachusetts|

* Nathaniel Gorham
* Rufus King

Connecticut|

* William Samuel Johnson
* Roger Sherman

New York|

* Alexander Hamilton

New Jersey|

* William Livingston
* David Brearley
* William Paterson
* Jonathan Dayton

Pennsylvania|

* Benjamin Franklin
* Thomas Mifflin
* Robert Morris
* George Clymer
* Thomas Fitzsimons
* Jared Ingersoll
* James Wilson
* Gouverneur Morris

Delaware|

* George Read
* Gunning Bedford Jr.
* John Dickinson
* Richard Bassett
* Jacob Broom

Maryland|

* James McHenry
* Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer
* Daniel Carroll

Virginia|

* John Blair
* James Madison

North Carolina|

* William Blount
* Richard Dobbs Spaight
* Hugh Williamson

South Carolina|

* John Rutledge
* Charles Cotesworth Pinckney
* Charles Pinckney
* Pierce Butler

Georgia|

* William Few
* Abraham Baldwin

Attest signature
to marginal note|

* William Jackson (convention secretary)

Related|

* Founding Fathers of the United States
* Syng inkstand

* v
* t
* e

History of slavery in Virginia

* Slavery in the colonial history of the United States
* History of Virginia

Enslaved people|

* Henry Box Brown (c. 1815–1897)
* John Casor (living 1655)
* Olaudah Equiano (c. 1745–1797)
* Isabella Gibbons (c. 1836–1890)
* William D. Gibbons (1825–1886)
* John Graweere (living 1641)
* Elizabeth Key Grinstead (Greenstead) (1630–1665)
* Left, husband of Jane Webb (fl. 1704–1727)
* Mary and Anthony Johnson (1600–1670)
* Dangerfield Newby (c. 1820–1859)
* John Punch (fl. 1630s, living 1640)
* Gabriel Prosser (1776–1800)
* William Tucker (born 1624)
* Booker T. Washington (1856–1915)

Slave owners|

* Presidents of the United States
* Washington
* Jefferson
* Madison
* Monroe
* Tyler
* John Armfield (1797–1871)
* Landon Carter (1710–1778)
* Robert "King" Carter (1663–1732)
* Robert Carter III (1728–1804), freed 450 slaves
* Thomas Roderick Dew (1802–1846)
* Andrew Hunter (1804–1888)
* Robert M. T. Hunter (1809–1887)
* Eppa Hunton
* Richard Bland Lee (1761–1827)
* William Mahone (1826–1895)
* George Mason (1725–1792)
* James M. Mason (1798–1871)
* John Page (1628–1692)
* Thomas Prosser
* Randolph family of Virginia
* William Barton Rogers (1804–1882)
* George Henry Thomas
* William Tucker (died 1642)
* John Wayles (1715–1773)
* Henry A. Wise (1806–1876)

Plantations|

* Beall-Air
* Berry Hill
* Brookfield
* Kenmore
* Monticello
* Montpelier
* Mount Airy
* Mount Vernon (enslaved people)
* Oatlands
* Poplar Forest
* Shirley
* Stratford Hall
* Tuckahoe
* Westover
* Woodlawn
* List of plantations in Virginia

Laws|

* Virginia laws
* An act concerning Servants and Slaves, 1705
* Federal laws
* Fugitive Slave Act of 1793
* Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves, 1808
* Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

Slave pens|

* Franklin and Armfield Office
* Lumpkin's Jail

Related articles|

* The 1619 Project
* African American Burial Ground
* Atlantic Creole
* Burning of Winchester Medical College
* Coastwise slave trade
* First Africans in Virginia
* Indentured servitude in Virginia
* District of Columbia retrocession
* Gabriel's Rebellion
* Great Dismal Swamp maroons
* Human trafficking in Virginia
* John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry
* Liberation and Freedom Day
* Memorial to Enslaved Laborers
* Nat Turner's slave rebellion
* Virginia in the American Civil War
* Virginia v. John Brown
* White House of the Confederacy

* v
* t
* e

Social and political philosophy

Ancient|

* Aristotle
* Augustine
* Chanakya
* Cicero
* Confucius
* Han Fei
* Lactantius
* Laozi
* Mencius
* Mozi
* Origen
* Philo
* Plato
* Plutarch
* Polybius
* Shang
* Sun Tzu
* Tertullian
* Thucydides
* Valluvar
* Xenophon
* Xunzi

Medieval|

* Alpharabius
* Aquinas
* Avempace
* Averroes
* Baldus
* Bartolus
* Bruni
* Dante
* Gelasius
* al-Ghazali
* Giles
* Gratian
* Gregory
* Ibn Khaldun
* John of Salisbury
* Latini
* Maimonides
* Marsilius
* Muhammad
* Nizam al-Mulk
* Ockham
* Photios
* Ibn Tufail
* Wang

Early modern|

* Beza
* Boétie
* Bodin
* Bossuet
* Buchanan
* Calvin
* Duplessis-Mornay
* Erasmus
* Filmer
* Goslicius
* Grotius
* Guicciardini
* Harrington
* Hayashi
* Hobbes
* Hotman
* James
* Leibniz
* Locke
* Luther
* Machiavelli
* Malebranche
* Milton
* Montaigne
* More
* Müntzer
* Pufendorf
* Sidney
* Spinoza
* Suárez

18th–19th-century|

* Bakunin
* Bastiat
* Beccaria
* Bentham
* Bolingbroke
* Bonald
* Burke
* Carlyle
* Comte
* Condorcet
* Constant
* Cortés
* Emerson
* Engels
* Fichte
* Fourier
* Franklin
* Godwin
* Haller
* Hamann
* Hegel
* Helvétius
* Herder
* Hume
* Jefferson
* Kant
* political philosophy
* Kierkegaard
* Le Bon
* Le Play
* Madison
* Maistre
* Marx
* Mazzini
* Mill
* Montesquieu
* Nietzsche
* Novalis
* Owen
* Paine
* Renan
* Rousseau
* Royce
* Sade
* Saint-Simon
* Schiller
* Smith
* Spencer
* Spooner
* de Staël
* Stirner
* Taine
* Thoreau
* Tocqueville
* Tucker
* Vico
* Vivekananda
* Voltaire
* Warren

20th–21st-century|

* Adorno
* Agamben
* Ambedkar
* Arendt
* Aurobindo
* Aron
* Badiou
* Baudrillard
* Bauman
* Benoist
* Berlin
* Bernstein
* Burnham
* Butler
* Camus
* Chomsky
* de Beauvoir
* Debord
* Deleuze
* Dewey
* Dmowski
* Du Bois
* Dugin
* Durkheim
* Dworkin
* Evola
* Foucault
* Fromm
* Fukuyama
* Gandhi
* Gehlen
* Gentile
* Gramsci
* Guénon
* Habermas
* Hayek
* Heidegger
* Hoppe
* Huntington
* Irigaray
* Jouvenel
* Kautsky
* Kirk
* Kołakowski
* Kropotkin
* Laclau
* Land
* Lenin
* Luxemburg
* MacIntyre
* Mansfield
* Mao
* Marcuse
* Maritain
* Maurras
* Michels
* Mises
* Mosca
* Mouffe
* Negri
* Niebuhr
* Nozick
* Nursî
* Oakeshott
* Ortega
* Pareto
* Polanyi
* Popper
* Qutb
* Radhakrishnan
* Rand
* Rawls
* Röpke
* Rothbard
* Russell
* Santayana
* Sarkar
* Sartre
* Schmitt
* Scruton
* Searle
* Shariati
* Simmel
* Skinner
* Sombart
* Sorel
* Spann
* Spengler
* Strauss
* Sun
* Taylor
* Voegelin
* Walzer
* Weber
* Weil
* Yarvin
* Žižek

Social theories|

* Anarchism
* Authoritarianism
* Collectivism
* Christian theories
* Communism
* Communitarianism
* Conflict theories
* Confucianism
* Consensus theory
* Conservatism
* Contractualism
* Cosmopolitanism
* Culturalism
* Elite theory
* Fascism
* Feminist theories
* Gandhism
* Hindu nationalism (Hindutva)
* Individualism
* Islamic theories
* Islamism
* Legalism
* Liberalism
* Libertarianism
* Mohism
* National liberalism
* Populism
* Republicanism
* Social constructionism
* Social constructivism
* Social Darwinism
* Social determinism
* Socialism
* Utilitarianism

Related articles|

* Critique of political economy
* Critique of work
* Jurisprudence
* Philosophy and economics
* Philosophy of education
* Philosophy of history
* Philosophy of law
* Philosophy of love
* Philosophy of social science
* Political ethics
* Social epistemology
* Index

* Category

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