III.

Early Career

By the spring of 1774, when the colonies were deep in protest against British domination, Madison was emerging from his long period of isolation and melancholy. He felt that his health was returning and with it a zest for taking part in the events that were absorbing so many able people of the time. His own position was already clear. He was committed to republican government and to separation of the American colonies from Great Britain.

In December 1774 Madison was elected a member of Orange County’s committee of safety, which exercised certain governmental functions as provided by the Continental Congress, a council of 12 of the 13 colonies. The committee was also responsible for local defense. Madison wrote at the time: “We are very busy at present in raising men and providing the necessaries for defending ourselves.”

In 1776 Madison was elected a delegate to the Virginia constitutional convention. Madison later wrote that, being young and inexperienced, he played only a small part in the proceedings. He was much too modest, for he served on the committee that prepared a declaration of rights and he drafted a plan of government for the new state. At this time he worked closely with Virginia legislator Thomas Jefferson in a great effort to establish religious freedom as a part of Virginia law. Madison wrote the article of the declaration of rights that asserted the right of all “to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience.” However, it was not until 1786 that, through Madison’s leadership, the Virginia legislature enacted Jefferson’s monumental Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom.

When the Virginia constitution went into effect in June 1776, Madison, along with the other delegates to the convention, became a member of the legislature, the General Assembly. The following spring, however, he failed to be reelected by his Orange County constituents. His refusal to indulge the people’s expectation to be wooed with whiskey for their votes is generally blamed for Madison’s loss of the election.

A year later, although he did not seek the office, he was returned to the assembly. In the meantime he had been appointed to the governor’s council. Madison gained valuable experience in practical government while he was serving on the council, although he characterized this administrative body as being “the grave of all useful talents.”

A.

Member of the Continental Congress

In December 1779 Madison was elected to the Continental Congress. He took his seat with the Virginia delegation in March 1780, just four days after his 29th birthday. He was not only the youngest man in Congress but at the beginning probably the least imposing. He was slight, reserved, and hesitant in taking the floor to speak. But these drawbacks did not prevent his making a speedy and accurate appraisal of the condition of the country, and after the first few months he assumed a leading role in Congress.

In 1781 major hostilities with Britain came to an end, and the independence of the United States was assured. However, there was still much to be decided regarding the new nation’s form of government and its relations with its neighbors. Madison favored strengthening the central government by giving it the power to enforce its financial requisitions on the states and to levy import duties. He led the fight in support of Virginia’s claims to western territories. In negotiations with Spain over navigational rights on the Mississippi River, he urged firmness against Spain’s demands for control of all shipping upon it. When Madison left Philadelphia at the end of 1783, he had established himself as an able and farsighted politician.

Before leaving Congress for home, Madison suffered a deep personal disappointment. He had fallen in love with Catherine Floyd, the young daughter of another congressional delegate. In April 1783 he wrote to Jefferson that he had “sufficiently ascertained her sentiments.” He hoped to be married at the end of the year. But Miss Floyd broke the engagement, and Madison returned to Montpelier for a solitary winter of reading and study.

B.

State Assemblyman

In the spring of 1784 Madison again ran for election to the Virginia assembly, and won. He served nearly three years there, pursuing the same objectives he had fought for in Congress. He advocated strengthening the federal government, which was an unpopular position in Virginia, as it was in most of the states. He consistently supported measures, at both state and national levels, that would best safeguard the rights of the individual. Madison also continued to oppose any connection between church and state. He wrote a brilliant objection against a proposed assessment for support of the Anglican Church in Virginia. He succeeded not only in defeating the assessment, but in winning passage of Jefferson’s bill for religious liberty, which had been rejected in 1779.

Madison was also greatly concerned about the problem of regulating commerce between the states. He was largely responsible for calling a conference between Maryland and Virginia to discuss navigation rules for the Potomac River, the border between the two states. The discussions failed because other states on the river were not represented. Madison and his supporters then proposed a resolution in the Virginia assembly inviting all the states to meet to discuss the question of uniform commercial regulations. The meeting was held in September 1786 in Annapolis, Maryland.

Madison saw a grave danger to national unity in the conflicting interests that dominated the different regions and states after the struggle against Britain. He believed that uniform rules should be established among the states to govern trade and commercial relations, and he felt that only the federal government could effectively enforce these rules. Madison and many others strongly believed that the Articles of Confederation, the legal framework under which the national government was operating, should be amended to expand the powers of Congress. But he was pessimistic about winning support for amending the Articles at the Annapolis Convention.

Madison attended the Annapolis Convention as a delegate from Virginia. Only four other states sent representatives. It was agreed to call another convention of all the states, this time to draw up a national constitution. The Virginia assembly unanimously approved the new convention, which was scheduled to be held in Philadelphia in May 1787, and Madison was named one of the delegates.

In February 1787 Madison returned briefly to Congress, primarily, he said, to preserve American access to the Mississippi River. He did help to halt the negotiations with Spain, which had taken a direction that would have led to the cession of American navigational rights which the United States had on the Mississippi.

C.

Father of the Constitution

C.1.

Constitutional Convention

Madison was one of the first delegates to arrive in Philadelphia for the Constitutional Convention, three weeks before the convention opened. He came equipped with two papers he had written earlier that spring, a Study of Ancient and Modern Confederacies; and Vices of the Political System of the United States, drawn from his comprehensive reading and his eleven years of experience in government. When his fellow delegates from Virginia arrived, Madison was ready to outline for them his plan of government.

Madison proposed a government with strong central powers, including a national judiciary and an elected national executive, and with authority to veto legislation of individual states. Primarily he sought to provide the central government “with positive and complete authority in all cases which require uniformity” and to prevent abuse of this authority by making the government responsible to the people. He favored a two-chamber legislature and a system of representation that would give the larger states an influence in proportion to their size.

Madison’s ideas were presented to the convention by Virginia’s Governor Edmund Randolph, in the so-called Virginia Plan or Large-State Plan. The Small-State Plan, urging equal representation in Congress for all states regardless of population, was proposed by New Jersey. Madison became the leading spokesman for the Virginia Plan and, despite strong opposition, for the Virginia delegation also.

The convention compromised between the Virginia and New Jersey plans: the states would be represented according to size in the lower chamber, the House of Representatives, but would have equal voting power in the upper chamber, the Senate. This represented a defeat for Madison. He feared government by a minority and foresaw that the small states would be able to wield disproportionate power.

Madison kept a detailed journal of the convention’s proceedings. He had been in constant attendance, and this Journal of the Federal Convention, published in 1840, is the most complete record of the historic meeting. “It happened,” he remarked, “that I was not absent a single day, nor more than a fraction of an hour in any day, so that I could not have lost a single speech unless a very short one.” His purpose was to preserve “the history of a Constitution on which would be staked the happiness of a people great even in its infancy, and possibly the cause of liberty throughout the world.”

In the year following the Constitutional Convention, Madison worked to get the new Constitution accepted. In Congress his efforts helped defeat attempts to amend the Constitution and speeded its referral to the states for ratification. Also, while in New York with the Congress, Madison made plans with fellow constitutional supporters Alexander Hamilton and John Jay for a series of articles explaining and defending the Constitution. These were published in the newspapers with the aim of counteracting the attacks that had been launched against the Constitution in the nation’s press.

C.2.

The Federalist

The first of these articles, later known collectively as The Federalist, was published in October 1787. Over the next ten months, the first 77 of the 85 separate essays appeared in newspapers in New York and other localities over the signature “a Citizen of New York” and, later, “Publius.” Madison is usually credited with the authorship of at least 26 of them.

The tenth essay of the series is perhaps the best known of those written by Madison. In it he explains the proper relationship of government to the many varied and conflicting interests that characterize a democratic society, and he analyzes the origin of these differences. He believed that political differences grew primarily out of varying economic interests and that the basic cause of the friction among the American states was not the differences in size but the conflicts between slave and free states, between plantation and merchant states, between debtor and creditor states. This view of society made Madison a forerunner of the so-called economic-interpretation school of history that became dominant in the 20th century. However, he believed that a strong Constitution could help to reduce such conflicts and prevent economic exploitation.

C.3.

Fight for Ratification in Virginia

Madison had not planned to participate in Virginia’s ratification convention. But opposition to the new Constitution had mounted in the state, and Madison’s friends urged him to assist in the fight for adoption. In the spring of 1788 Madison left New York for Virginia. He ran for delegate from Orange County and was elected to the June convention.

At the convention, Madison found some of the most powerful and most eloquent of Virginia’s statesmen opposed to the Constitution, including Patrick Henry, George Mason, and James Monroe. But, as in Philadelphia, Madison had come well prepared. He knew every article of the proposed Constitution and was familiar with all the arguments used against it. When point-by-point examination of the Constitution began, Madison spoke constantly in its defense and offered full explanations.

Though ill, Madison took the floor 35 times in the first four days of this examination. His arguments were those of The Federalist. His manner of speaking was restrained, while that of Patrick Henry, his chief adversary, was flamboyant. Madison spoke always to the point, with the pertinent facts at hand.

It was Madison’s thorough acquaintance with the affairs of Congress that overwhelmed Henry’s final attempt to block ratification. When his opponent warned the convention that the treaty powers under the proposed Constitution would result in the loss of the Mississippi River to Spain, Madison replied that a majority of the states were already committed to retaining American navigation rights. By this disclosure, Madison reassured the delegates from the western territories of Virginia and obtained their support for the Constitution. In the final tally the convention approved ratification by a vote of 89 to 79.

After the convention adjourned, the Virginia assembly returned Madison to Congress, then in its final session under the Articles of Confederation. However, largely through the efforts of Patrick Henry, Madison failed to win a seat in the new U.S. Senate. He thereupon ran for election to the House of Representatives from his home district. He was opposed by James Monroe. However, in February 1789, Madison was easily elected to the first of the four consecutive terms that he served in the House.

D.

United States Congressman

The eight years of Madison’s service in Congress saw the beginning of the two-party system in the United States. The chief causes of the split between the founding fathers were relations with Britain and differing views on the powers to be granted the federal government. Hamilton headed the Federalist group (later the Federalist Party), mostly Northerners, who favored accommodation with Britain and a strong central government. Jefferson was the chief spokesman for those who opposed friendship with Britain and sought to limit the power of the federal government. Madison began his career in Congress as leader for Hamilton’s administrative program. However, as Hamilton’s financial schemes became more obviously pro-Northern and pro-industrial, Madison opposed these plans. By the end of his congressional career, he was a leader of the anti-Federalists, or Democratic-Republican Party, in Congress.

Madison automatically assumed a role of leadership. In the first term of the new Congress, he introduced its first piece of business, a measure to raise revenues for paying off the national debt. He successfully defended the measure, which imposed a series of import taxes, against vigorous opposition by representatives who proposed changing the measure to benefit local interests. Madison emphasized that the import taxes were desirable as a means of raising money, not of regulating the flow of goods. He believed that “commercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive and impolitic.”

Soon after passage of the revenue bill, Madison advanced and fought for two other important measures in the House. The first proposed to set up executive departments of the government. The second, introduced on June 8, 1789, presented a series of nine amendments to strengthen the Constitution. These were largely designed to guarantee personal liberty, including religious freedom and freedom of the press. Madison led the debate for his amendments and saw most of them approved. They formed, with the Tenth Amendment, the Bill of Rights of the Constitution.

D.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.

D.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.

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.”

D.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.

D.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.

D.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.

E.

Secretary of State

When Jefferson became president in 1801, he appointed Madison to the highest post in his Cabinet. From 1801 to 1809, Madison served as both secretary of state and chief adviser to his old friend.

The extent to which Madison personally formulated American foreign policy is not clear. Jefferson generated many ideas, and began some actions himself. For example, Jefferson, working with ambassadors reporting directly to him, managed the Louisiana Purchase, which finally assured the United States access to the Mississippi. Yet Madison was more than secretary of state to the president. The two men exchanged views on all subjects and were always in essential agreement.

When Madison took over the Department of State, its staff numbered fewer than a dozen, and his administrative duties were not extensive. However, the international problems confronting him were formidable. They concerned primarily America’s relations with the warring nations of Europe.

Since the beginning of hostilities between France and Great Britain, American shippers had been transporting much of the seaborne trade of those countries, particularly between Europe and the French and British islands of the West Indies. However, Britain and France had declared a blockade against each other’s ports. American ships headed to or from those ports were often stopped by the British or French navy and their cargoes confiscated. Further, sailors on American vessels were frequently removed and forcibly inducted, or impressed, into service with the British navy (see Impressment and Search).

While Madison was secretary of state, both sides increased their interference with American shipping. For a variety of reasons the British were regarded as the greater offenders, and many people in the United States urged an aggressive policy, even to declaring war on Britain. Others favored negotiations in the hope that an accommodation could be reached.

In 1803 Madison began writing a series of letters to French and, more often, British authorities, protesting against illegal interference with American shipping. This “diplomacy by correspondence,” though well grounded in theory and legal argument, had little effect. Madison’s efforts were ridiculed by Congressman John Randolph of Roanoke as a “shilling pamphlet hurled against eight hundred ships of war.” Attempts to negotiate failed to stop the impressment of American sailors or the confiscation of American cargoes.

Finally, still determined not to be provoked into war, Madison and Jefferson introduced the Embargo Act of 1807, which ordered all trade into and out of American ports to be halted. Since this ban was difficult to enforce and in any event did not intimidate either Britain or France, it eventually had to be abandoned. Harassment of American shipping continued into Madison’s own administration.