107 Facts About President James Madison

President James Madison served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817.

President James 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.

President James Madison was born into a prominent planter family in Virginia.

President James Madison served as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates and the Continental Congress during and after the American Revolutionary War.

President James Madison's Virginia Plan served as the basis for the Convention's deliberations, and he was an influential voice at the convention.

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President James Madison 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.

President James Madison was re-elected in 1812, albeit by a smaller margin than in the 1808 election.

President James Madison presided over the creation of the Second Bank of the United States and the enactment of the protective Tariff of 1816.

President James Madison's family had lived in Virginia since the mid-17th century.

President James Madison's maternal grandfather was a prominent planter and tobacco merchant.

President James Madison's father was a tobacco planter who grew up at a plantation, then called Mount Pleasant, which he had inherited upon reaching adulthood.

President James Madison grew up as the oldest of twelve children, with seven brothers and four sisters, though only six lived to adulthood.

From age 11 to 16, President James Madison studied under Donald Robertson, a Scottish instructor who served as a tutor for several prominent planter families in the South.

President James Madison learned mathematics, geography, and modern and classical languages, becoming exceptionally proficient in Latin.

At age 16, President James Madison returned to Montpelier, where he studied under the Reverend Thomas Martin to prepare for college.

Unlike most college-bound Virginians of his day, President James 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 delicate health.

Emphasis was placed on both speech and debate; President James Madison was a leading member of the American Whig–Cliosophic Society, which competed on campus with a political counterpart, the Cliosophic Society.

President James Madison began to study law books in 1773, asking his friend William Bradford, a law apprentice, to send him a written plan of study.

President James Madison had acquired an understanding of legal publications by 1783.

President James Madison saw himself as a law student but not a lawyer: he did not apprentice himself to a lawyer, and never joined the bar.

President James Madison believed that Parliament had overstepped its bounds by attempting to tax the American colonies, and he sympathized with those who resisted British rule.

President James Madison believed these measures to be insufficient and he favored disestablishing the Anglican Church in Virginia; President James Madison believed that tolerance of an established religion was detrimental not only to freedom of religion but because it encouraged excessive deference to any authority which might be asserted by an established church.

In 1774, President James Madison took a seat on the local Committee of Safety, a pro-revolution group that oversaw the local Patriot militia.

President James Madison had proposed liberalizing the article on religious freedom, but the larger Virginia Convention stripped the proposed constitution of the more radical language.

President James 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.

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Frustrated by the failure of the states to supply needed requisitions, President James Madison proposed to amend the Articles of Confederation to grant Congress the power to independently raise revenue through tariffs on imports.

President James Madison 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.

President James Madison was 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.

President James Madison 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.

President James Madison 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.

President James Madison 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.

President James Madison became a key adviser to Washington, who valued President James Madison's understanding of the constitution.

President James Madison helped Washington write his first inaugural address, and prepared the official House response to Washington's speech.

President James Madison played a significant role in establishing and staffing the three Cabinet departments, and his influence helped Thomas Jefferson become the first Secretary of State.

Hamilton's plan favored Northern speculators and was disadvantageous to states, such as Virginia, that had already paid off most of their debt; and President James Madison emerged as one of the principal Congressional opponents of the plan.

President James Madison believed that the enumeration of specific rights would fix those rights in the public mind and encourage judges to protect them.

President James Madison's 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.

President James Madison 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".

President James Madison's proposed amendments were largely adopted by the House of Representatives, but the Senate made several changes.

President James Madison was disappointed that the Bill of Rights did not include protections against actions by state governments, but the passage of the document mollified some critics of the original constitution and shored up President James Madison's support in Virginia.

One faction, led by Jefferson and President James Madison, broadly represented Southern interests and sought close relations with France which became the Democratic-Republican Party opposition to Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton.

Therefor they opposed Hamilton's plan for the formation of a national bank and President James Madison argued that under the Constitution, Congress did not have the power to create such an institution.

President James Madison believed that a trade war with Britain would probably succeed, and would allow Americans to assert their independence fully.

The British West Indies, President James Madison maintained, could not live without American foodstuffs, but Americans could easily do without British manufacturers.

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.

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President James Madison, meanwhile, had declined to seek re-election, and he returned to Montpelier.

President James 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.

President James 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.

President James Madison issued the Report of 1800, which attacked the Alien and Sedition Acts as unconstitutional.

In 1802, Jefferson and President James 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.

President James 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.

Unlike Jefferson, President James Madison was not seriously concerned with the constitutionality of the purchase.

President James Madison believed that the circumstances did not warrant a strict interpretation of the Constitution, because the expansion was in the country's best interest.

President James 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.

President James Madison became the target of attacks from Congressman John Randolph, a leader of a faction of the party known as the tertium quids.

The Federalist Party mustered little strength outside New England, and President James Madison easily defeated Federalist candidate Charles Cotesworth Pinckney in the general election.

Unlike Jefferson, who enjoyed relatively unified support, President James Madison faced political opposition from Monroe and Clinton.

President James Madison immediately faced opposition to his planned nomination of Secretary of the Treasury Gallatin as secretary of state.

President James Madison eventually chose not to nominate Gallatin, keeping him in the treasury department.

President James Madison settled instead for Robert Smith, the brother of Maryland Senator Samuel Smith, to be the secretary of state.

However, for the next two years, President James Madison performed most of the job of the secretary of state due to Smith's incompetence.

Early in his presidency, President James Madison sought to continue Jefferson's policies of low taxes and a reduction of the national debt.

Congress had repealed the Embargo Act of 1807 shortly before Madison became president, but troubles with the British and French continued.

President James 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.

President James Madison accepted Napoleon's proposal in the hope that it would convince the British to finally end their policy of commercial warfare.

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President James 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.

Difficult as it was for them to join forces, they nominated Clinton for President James Madison and Jared Ingersoll, a Philadelphia lawyer, for vice president.

Just over a month later, President James Madison learned that his negotiators had negotiated the Treaty of Ghent which ended the war.

President James Madison hastened the decline of the Federalists by adopting several programs he had previously opposed.

President James Madison 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.

President James Madison's initiatives were opposed by strict constructionists such as John Randolph, who stated that Madison's proposals "out-Hamiltons Alexander Hamilton".

President James Madison approved federal spending on the Cumberland Road, which provided a link to the country's western lands; 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.

President James Madison believed the adoption of European-style agriculture would help Native Americans assimilate the values of British–U.

Privately, President James Madison did not believe American Indians could be fully assimilated to the values of British-U.

President James 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".

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".

When President James Madison left office in 1817 at age 65, he retired to Montpelier, not far from Jefferson's Monticello.

President James Madison's plantation experienced a steady financial collapse, due to price declines in tobacco and his stepson's mismanagement.

President James Madison remained out of the public debate over the Missouri Compromise, though he privately complained about the North's opposition to the extension of slavery.

In 1826, after the death of Jefferson, President James Madison was appointed as the second rector of the university.

President James Madison retained the position as college chancellor for ten years until his death in 1836.

In 1829, at the age of 78, President James Madison was chosen as a representative to the Virginia Constitutional Convention for revision of the commonwealth's constitution.

President James Madison made modest gains but was disappointed at the failure of Virginians to extend suffrage to all white men.

President James Madison resorted to modifying letters and other documents in his possession, changing days and dates, adding and deleting words and sentences.

President James Madison was one of the last prominent members of the Revolutionary War generation to die.

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President James Madison had bright blue eyes and was known to be humorous in small gatherings.

President James Madison suffered from episodes of mental exhaustion and illness with associated nervousness, and was often sidelined after periods of stress.

President James Madison often feared for the worst and was a hypochondriac.

However, President James Madison was physically able and usually in good physical health throughout his long life until his very last years.

President James Madison's became a renowned figure in Washington, D C, and excelled at hosting dinners and other important political occasions.

President James Madison never had children, but he adopted Dolley's one surviving son, John Payne Todd, after the marriage.

Some of his colleagues, such as Monroe and Burr, alleged that President James Madison was infertile and that his lack of offspring weighed on his thoughts; but President James Madison never spoke of any such distress.

At age 50, President James Madison inherited the large plantation of Montpelier and other possessions, including his father's numerous slaves.

Regardless of his own religious beliefs, President James Madison believed in religious liberty, and he advocated for Virginia's disestablishment of religious institutions sponsored by the state.

President James Madison opposed the appointments of chaplains for Congress and the armed forces, arguing that the appointments produce religious exclusion as well as political disharmony.

President James 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.

President James Madison believed that slaves were human property, while he opposed slavery intellectually.

President James Madison initially opposed the 20-year delay in ending the foreign slave trade.

President James Madison 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.

President James Madison believed that former slaves were unlikely to successfully integrate into Southern society.

President James Madison was referred to as a "garden-variety slaveholder" by historian Elizabeth Dowling Taylor.

President James 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.

President James Madison did not free any of his slaves, either during his lifetime or in his will.

One of the Founding Fathers of the United States, President James Madison had a wide influence on upon the founding of the nation and upon the early development of American constitutional government and foreign policy.

Law professor Noah Feldman writes that President James Madison "invented and theorized the modern ideal of an expanded, federal constitution that combines local self-government with an overarching national order".

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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".

President James Madison did more than most, and did some things better than any.