James Madison: Federalist 10

About the Author

James Madison was born on March 16, 1751, into a wealthy Tidewater family. Raised on a Virginia plantation, he was a sickly child who suffered from unexplained seizures. After graduation from Princeton University, he returned home to pursue legal studies. In 1774 he took a seat on the local Committee of Safety, a pro-revolution group that oversaw the local militia. As a delegate to the Virginia Convention in 1776, Madison was embroiled in the independence debates. In 1778 he was appointed to the Virginia Council of State, which directed state affairs during the Revolution. There he cemented his relationship with Jefferson, who served as governor of Virginia during the war years.

Young Madison had a rare ability to understand and articulate issues. For three years he fought for legislation to strengthen the confederacy of former colonies, contending that military victory required vesting power in a central government. Returning to the House of Delegates in 1784, Madison feared that the Articles of Confederation left the infant republic open to foreign attack and domestic turmoil. He persuaded states rights advocate John Taylor to call a meeting in Annapolis, Maryland, to address problems of interstate commerce. The poorly attended assembly issued a call for a national convention. As leader of the Virginia delegation, Madison supported George Washington as chair.

Madison's Virginia Plan was the model for the eventual Constitution. His extensive notes detailing the proceedings of the convention are the best source of information available on the deliberations. By September 1787 Madison emerged as the most persuasive voice arguing for the new constitution, eventually earning him the sobriquet “Father of the Constitution.”

When the Constitution was presented to the states for ratification, Madison, along with Hamilton and Jay, published The Federalist. This collection is considered the clearest explication of the theory and structure of the U.S. Constitution. Madison argued for a strong central government, subject to an extensive system of checks and balances. He participated in the debates of the Virginia ratification convention, where the Antifederalists were led by Patrick Henry, Henry Lee, and James Monroe. His oratorical skill and reasoned arguments won Virginia for ratification.

Madison, elected to the House of Representatives in 1789, was Washington’s chief supporter. When he guided the first ten amendments into law in 1791, Madison fulfilled his promise to Jefferson that the Constitution would have a bill of rights. He disagreed with Washington's support for Hamilton, who sought to create a stronger central government favoring commercial and financial over agrarian interests. He also disagreed with the administration’s favoritism toward Britain and joined with Jefferson to form the Democratic-Republican Party. Ironically for Madison, an earlier proponent of centralism, the Democratic-Republicans identified localism, libertarianism, and agrarianism as the bedrock of true republicanism.

During the Adams presidency, Madison led the fight against the Alien and Sedition Acts, designed to suppress opposition to the pro-British Federalist foreign policy. He authored the Virginia Resolution, which declared the laws an unconstitutional violation of civil liberties. In 1799 he campaigned for Jefferson as president. When Jefferson won, Madison became secretary of state, a position he retained until his own election to the presidency in 1808.

Although he was a weak executive, Madison's two terms are remarkable chiefly for the War of 1812. He allowed the expansionist “War Hawk” wing of the Republican Party, led by John Calhoun and Henry Clay, to drag him into declaring war over continued British violations of American maritime rights and support to the Indian insurgency in the Northwest. With an army of fewer than 8,000 men and no national bank, the war was a military disaster that accomplished nothing new for either side. In the wake of the war, Madison chartered the Second Bank of the United States over the opposition of his own party. Madison died in 1836 at the age of eighty-five, having devoted forty years of service to the fledgling American republic.