James Madison
2002
Founding Father · Abolitionist
James Madison was an American statesperson, diplomat, and Founding Father who served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817.
Madison made a major contribution to the ratification of the Constitution by writing, with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, the Federalist essays. In later years, when he was referred to as the “Father of the Constitution,” Madison protested that the document was not “the offspring of a single brain,” but “the work of many heads and many hands.”
His goals were to safeguard the rights and liberties of the people against broad actions of Congress and individual states. He believed that listing the specific rights would fix those rights in the public mind and encourage judges to protect them.
“If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”
After studying more than two hundred amendments proposed at the state ratifying conventions, 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.
“Religion can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence. The religion, then, of every man, must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. In matters of religion no man’s right is abridged by the institution of civil society, and religion is wholly exempt from its cognizance…”
Madison was responsible for proposals to guarantee freedom of the press, protect property from government seizure, and ensure jury trials. 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.”
To prevent a permanent standing federal army, Madison proposed the Second Amendment, which gave state-regulated militia groups and private citizens the “right to bear arms.” Madison wanted a free government to be established by the consent of the governed, not by a national military force.
During the early 1790s, Madison opposed the centralization of power favored by Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton. Along with Thomas Jefferson, he organized the Democratic–Republican Party in opposition to Hamilton's Federalist Party. He was elected president in 1808. After escalating trade issues with Britain, Madison asked Congress to declare war on June 1, 1812, starting the War of 1812. Although the war ended inconclusively, many Americans viewed the war's outcome as a successful "second war of independence" against Britain and Madison was re-elected in 1812.
As president, he continued to champion church state separation, vetoing legislation that would provide free land to a church and arguing that the nation should not pay for a chaplain to pray before Congress.
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.
In a note opened after his death in 1836, he stated, “The advice nearest to my heart and deepest in my convictions is that the Union of the States be cherished and perpetuated.”