James Madison was born on 16 March 1751, while his parents, James Madison Sr. and Nelly Conway Madison, were visiting his maternal grandmother on her plantation in King George County, Virginia. The young family soon returned to their own plantation, which would eventually be known as Montpelier, in Orange County. Little is known of Madison’s early life, and the house where he first lived has long since disappeared. Madison’s great-great-grandfather, John Maddison, had come to Virginia as a ship’s carpenter in the middle of the 1600s. Maddison and his descendants prospered in America, the seconddwas dropped along the...

In a speech in 1827, the Philadelphia lawyer and politician Charles J. Ingersoll called James Madison the “Father of the Constitution,” and the appellation stuck. Madison denied it, writing another admirer, “You give me credit to which I have no claim. . . . This was not like the fabled goddess of wisdom the offspring of a single brain. It ought to be regarded as the work of many heads and many hands.”¹

He had reasons to be modest. He knew he had shared the stage at the Philadelphia convention of 1787 with a remarkable collection of political talent. His...

Shortly after the Philadelphia convention adjourned, the Virginia legislature reelected James Madison to Congress by a vote of 126 to 14. Broke by the end of the convention, Madison borrowed one hundred dollars from fellow delegate John Blair and left for New York. Madison’s return to Congress broke a deadlock in the Virginia delegation. Richard Henry Lee and William Grayson opposed the Constitution; Henry Lee and Edward Carrington supported it. Richard Henry Lee wanted to amend the Constitution, or at least send it to the states with proposed amendments. Madison hoped Congress would recommend it be approved as written. The...

“If I could not go to heaven but with a party,” Thomas Jefferson once said, “I would not go there at all.” Jefferson was given to hyperbole, but the framers generally took a dim view of political parties. “Party spirit,” Abigail Adams said, “sees not that wisdom dwells with moderation.” Madison believed parties were at best a necessary evil. The Constitution made no provision for them, and Madison hoped its elaborate system of checks and balances would mitigate their unwholesome tendencies.¹

To Madison’s dismay, a new Federalist clique soon gained control of the national government. Convinced that the Federalists, despite...

Martha Bland, the wife of Virginia congressman Theodorick Bland, knew James Madison when he served in the Continental Congress. He was, she thought, “a gloomy, stiff creature . . . the most unsociable creature in existence.” Edward Coles, who served as Madison’s personal secretary in later years, recalled a man habitually dressed in black, with knee breeches and silk stockings. His hair was powdered, tied in back, and combed to a peak on his forehead, presumably to cover a bald spot. A small frame, weakened by chronic intestinal problems, and his natural reserve made him physically unimposing. As Coles described...

Thomas Jefferson worried about James Madison as the new president took office. “If peace can be preserved, I hope and trust you will have a smooth administration, ”Jefferson told his old friend. But he warned him, “I know no government which would be so embarrassing in war as ours.” Jefferson blamed “the lying and licentious character” of American newspapers and “the wonderful credulity” of Congress for the nation’s military incompetence. Unfortunately for Madison, a war with Great Britain would dominate his presidency, and he would struggle in the White House with a host of problems. Some were of his own...

The Harvard professor George Ticknor visited Montpelier in 1824 and found James Madison looking younger than he had seemed, as a wartime president, ten years earlier. Madison enjoyed good health for the first decade of his retirement, entertained an almost constant stream of admirers and relatives, and kept busy with a variety of tasks. “I have rarely during the period of my public life,” he told one correspondent, “found my time less at my disposal than since I took my final leave of it.” Family occupied much of his time. Madison remained close to his sister Sarah and a small...