James Madison

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1

Split with the Federalists

In the 1790 session of Congress, Madison began to be alienated from the Federalists. He took issue with portions of Hamilton’s plan for securing the country’s credit. He urged that any profits made by present holders of notes or certificates of the nation’s indebtedness be shared with the original holders of such bills, that is, those who actually loaned the money. Otherwise, people who purchased these bills from the original creditors could make a large profit. Madison strongly, and probably rightly, feared the possibility of large gains to speculators who would buy the bills on news of a federal funding. However, he was defeated on this point.

Madison also fought Hamilton’s proposal that the federal government assume the states’ debts incurred during the revolution. Although he had advocated a similar measure in 1783, Madison now would not accept it. He felt that certain states, among them Virginia, that had retired a large part of their wartime debt would be made to pay more than their share. He also feared the consequences of concentrating financial power in one place. But before long he conceded that “I suspect that it will yet be unavoidable to admit the evil in some qualified shape.” The assumption bill was soon passed. The South’s support was won by the promise, agreed to by Jefferson, if not Madison, that the national capital would be located in the South. The establishment of the capital in Washington, D.C., was the result of this compromise.

The breach between Hamilton and Madison soon widened further. When Hamilton introduced a bill to charter a national bank, early in 1791, Madison organized and led the opposition to it. He also objected to new tariff (import tax) measures proposed by Hamilton, always taking the position that the Constitution did not sanction the powers that Hamilton’s followers assumed. In fact, Hamilton’s measures hardly went beyond what Madison himself had proposed in the Continental Congress. But now Madison feared that Hamilton’s program would enhance the power of the North. The national spirit that had inspired many American statesmen, including Madison, during the revolution and the formation of the new government was beginning to yield to regional allegiances.

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2

Collaboration With Jefferson

Madison’s parting with his former Federalist friends was complete by 1792, when the second American presidential election was held. Madison did not support John Adams for the vice presidency. In fact, all the electoral votes of Virginia, then the largest of all the states, were cast for an anti-Federalist candidate. From this time on, Madison joined his political life to that of Thomas Jefferson and became openly and bitterly critical of Hamilton and his views. Relations between President George Washington and Madison now grew cool, though the president had regularly consulted Madison on basic policies during his first term.

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The friendship of Madison and Jefferson was one of the most remarkable in American history. They first met in the Virginia legislature in 1776. But, according to the unassuming Madison, this meeting was “rendered slight by the disparity between us,” and he did not become closely acquainted with Jefferson until 1779, when Jefferson was governor of Virginia. From about 1782 on, they met frequently and corresponded on a wide variety of subjects. But until 1789 they were still, wrote Madison, “for the most part separated by different walks in public and private life.”

Beginning about 1790, however, Madison’s political career closely followed Jefferson’s. In their personalities and modes of thinking they were very different, but they complemented one another. Statesman Henry Clay said that he preferred Madison and thought him the nation’s most distinguished political writer and, after Washington, its greatest statesman. Clay regarded Jefferson as having greater genius; Madison, greater judgment and common sense. He considered Jefferson “a visionary and theorist, often betrayed by his enthusiasm into rash and imprudent and impractical measures,” while he viewed Madison as “cool, dispassionate—practical, safe.”

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3

Foreign Affairs

The antagonism between Federalists and anti-Federalists became sharpest in the realm of foreign affairs. Like Jefferson, Madison was sympathetic to the French Revolution (1789-1799). Hamilton, on the other hand, mistrusted it. Throughout the wars between France and Britain, the Federalists’ sympathies were with Britain, while those of Jefferson and Madison were with France. In 1793 President Washington firmly declared America’s intention of remaining neutral in the foreign war. Madison saw this position as a “most unfortunate error” and a sign of the pro-British tilt of the administration’s foreign policy. In a series of five letters published in the Gazette of the United States, Madison, under the name Helvidius, assailed Hamilton’s defense of neutrality. U.S. neutrality made it impossible to carry out certain provisions of the U.S. treaty with France signed during the American Revolution. Referring to Hamilton’s views, published previously in the Gazette, Madison wrote with greater anger than was his habit: “Several pieces...lately published...have been read with singular pleasure and applause by the foreigners and degenerate citizens among us, who hate our republican government and the French Revolution.”

Instead of neutrality, Madison urged a policy of retaliation with “commercial weapons” against any interference with American shipping and foreign commerce. Jay’s Treaty with Britain, negotiated late in 1794 to agree on shipping rights, did not satisfy Madison. It allowed liberal trading rights to Britain without making changes to the British regulations that limited American trade to Britain. He opposed the legislation necessary to implement it.

The issue of the U.S. position in the conflict between France and Britain was to dominate much of Madison’s future political career, first as secretary of state and later as president. However, in his last term in Congress the Federalist Party was firmly in control, and Madison wielded little influence. In fact, Madison did not seek reelection in 1796.

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4

Marriage

During his third term in Congress, at the age of 43, Madison married a young widow, Dolley Payne Todd. Both had lived in Philadelphia for several years and certainly knew each other, but their friendship did not begin until the spring of 1794. Madison sought a formal introduction, and Dolley excitedly wrote to a friend, “Thou must come to me. Aaron Burr [then a U.S. senator] says that the great little Madison has asked to be brought to see me this evening.” Their marriage took place on September 15 of the same year.

Though childless, the marriage was a happy one. Dolley was a woman of great personal warmth and social ease. She made domestic life so attractive that Madison even contemplated permanent retirement from politics. In fact, at the end of the congressional session in 1797, he returned to Montpelier, intending to devote his life to farming.

But Madison’s retirement lasted only two years, after which he was once more elected to the Virginia legislature. He had continued to observe the affairs of government with keen and partisan interest, and he was in frequent touch with his political friends. With Jefferson serving as vice president and broadening the influence of the Republican Party, as the anti-Federalists by then were known, Madison’s involvement was unlikely to diminish.

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5

Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions

In 1798 Madison joined Jefferson in opposing the Alien and Sedition Acts passed under President John Adams’s Federalist administration. He regarded these acts, which were adopted to restrain partisans and sympathizers of the French Revolution, as unconstitutional and a grave threat to civil liberties. With Jefferson and other Republicans, Madison agreed to combat the acts. He drew up the Virginia Resolutions, condemning the Alien and Sedition Acts as infractions of the federal government’s constitutional powers. Jefferson composed a similar though more extreme set of resolutions, asserting that a state could refuse to apply such laws, for the legislature of Kentucky. Both states adopted their respective resolutions, later known as the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. But they took no action on them, and no similar action was taken by other states.

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