Episode 869: Founding Fathers – James Madison

The lives of these men are essential to understanding the American form of government and our ideals of liberty. The Founding Fathers all played key roles in the securing of American independence from Great Britain and in the creation of the government of the United States of America.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
On this episode of This World. The lives of these
men are essential to understand the American form of government
and our ideals of liberty. The Founding Fathers all played
key roles in securing American independence from Great Britain and
in the creation of the government of the United States
of America. And now the life of James Madison, and

(00:30):
I have to say, having visited his home, that he's
a remarkable figure. He is in some ways one of
the most interesting of all the Founding Fathers because he's
so complicated, he's so smart. His real contributions are all cerebral.
He studied, he read, he thought, he wrote, and over
time he had an enormous impact at every level. Remember,

(00:54):
the Democratic Republican Party that he and Jefferson founded still
exists as the Democratic Party, the law youngest surviving political
institution in the world today. The Bill of Rights is
at the heart of our freedom and he was the
guiding force. In fact, his role in the First Congress
was amazing. He literally drafted constitutions, thought about it. It was

(01:15):
sort of a hobby, and so he was tremendously prepared
to help write the Constitution. When the Founding Fathers met
in Philadelphia, and I always try to remind people the
Federalist papers are not some stuffy academic document that we
read them nowadays really as sort of policy in a
way that is kind of abstract and good for graduate students,

(01:37):
but not a hobby for most people. But the Federalist
papers were written as the most important pamphlet and political history.
Now they're very complicated their long and Madison wrote some
of the most important of the Federalist papers convincing people
of two different things that they needed a federal government

(01:59):
because the individual states would only be gobbled up by
France and Britain in Spain, so they had to come
together to survive. And at the same time, you could
write a constitution that protected you from your own government.
And it's important to remember the founding fathers were as
worried about domestic repression from the government as they were

(02:20):
about foreign dangers to America. And Madison is the person who,
more than anyone else, balances those two. As he writes
at one point, you know, if men were angels, we
wouldn't need government. But since men aren't angels, how are
we going to govern? The governors? And that he constantly
thought about protecting us from our own government, something which
I would argue is remarkably current today. So how did

(02:45):
a sickly, soft spoken man five foot four inches and
barely one hundred pounds become the father of the Constitution?
Washington Irving described him as a withered little apple. John
Madison was born March sixteen, seventeen fifty one, the oldest
of twelve children, of whom only seven survived to adulthood.

(03:05):
His father, James Madison Senior, had inherited substantial wealth, and
his mother and Eli Conway, was the daughter of a
tobacco merchant. Because of their wealth, young James Madison was
afforded private tutors, including a Scottish teacher named Donald Robertson,
who instructed the young boy between the ages of eleven
and sixteen in mathematics, geography, and Latin. An often sickly child,

(03:30):
Madison suffered from what he called sudden attacks. As Madison
later wrote that he had quote a constitutional tendency to
sudden attacks, somewhat resembling epilepsy, which suspended all intellectual function.
Imagine how frightening that must have been in the eighteenth century.
He planned to attend the College of William and Mary,
where his later friend Thomas Jefferson attended, but he thought

(03:53):
that Virginia's humid climate would worsen his attacks, so he
opted to go north to the College of New Jersey,
which ultimately became Princeton University. In seventeen seventy one, Madison
graduated with high marks in classical languages, mathematics, rhetoric, geography,
and philosophy. After only attending for two years, he wanted

(04:16):
more education, so Madison became the school's first graduate student,
studying Hebrew and political philosophy under the university president, John Witherspoon,
who later on became a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
When he graduated with his graduate degree, Madison, unsure what
to do, started in local politics, becoming a member of

(04:37):
the Orange County Committee of Public Safety in seventeen seventy four.
That committee oversaw the local militia in the event of
a war of independence against the British. Remember the Second
Amendment rose out of these experiences. It is the Committee
of Public Safety who are arming and training militia which
enables the Americans to survive when the British tried to

(05:00):
conquer them. His seizure attacks actually prevented him from joining
the military, as on July twenty eighth, seventeen seventy five,
at the age of twenty four, he collapsed during a
military drill. But in October seventeen seventy five, he was
commissioned as colonel of the Orange County Militia, serving alongside
his father until he was elected as a delegate to

(05:23):
the fifth Virginia Convention. Madison, in the most important friendship
of his life, met Jefferson in the fall of seventeen
seventy six, when they both were members of the Virginia
House of Delegates. Hard to imagine two people who were different.
Jefferson was six foot two and described as straight as
a gun barrel. Madison was five foot four inches and

(05:44):
barely one hundred pounds. Imagine the two of them hanging
out together. But what brought them together was their minds.
Jefferson was described as quick witted and Madison was painfully
shy and reserved. But Madison thought all the time, and
Madison could hold his own with j Jefferson, the pair
connected and a friendship began which lasted for decades. In

(06:06):
seventeen seventy seven, Madison lost his seat in the House
of Delegates because he refused to participate in the long
standing Virginia custom of treating voters to whiskey, because he
felt it was the same as buying votes. In other words,
back then, you showed up annually at the polling place,
and you got free liquor, and the candidate who gave

(06:26):
away the most free liquor got elected. Now, Madison was
not alone. Washington when he first ran, refused to buy
any alcohol because he was a military hero, very famous,
and he came in last because all the local neighbors said,
wait a second, if you're not going to buy me
a drink, why am I going to vote for you.
The following year, Washington bought more liquor for the voters

(06:48):
than anybody else in that particular race. So Madison was
faced with trying to deal with the country whose patterns were,
shall we say, a little different than Madison would have liked.
But despite all that, in seventeen seventy eight, Madison was
elected to the Virginia Governor's eight member Council of State.

(07:09):
When Jefferson was elected governor of Virginia in seventeen seventy nine, Madison,
as a member of the Council of State, worked closely
with him, talking daily and offering his advice. And remember
this is in the middle of a war. In seventeen eighty,
at the age of twenty nine, Madison became the youngest
member of the Continental Congress at the time. Jefferson was

(07:30):
Minister to France and did not attend the convention, but
he frequently sent Madison books and letters. Madison supported efforts
to strengthen the power of the federal government. He knew
that the Continental Congress system the Articles of Confederation simply
wasn't work. He made several unsuccessful attempts to compromise with
delegates who wanted strong state governments. He kept trying to

(07:53):
convince them, you can't have strong state governments and survive
because these foreign powers are going to pick us off
one by one and gradually subvert all of North America.
Madison took detailed notes, so not only who was present
every day, but exactly what was said and by who.
Madison avoided any long absences, did not miss a single

(08:13):
day of debate, later writing quote, it happened also that
I was not absent a single day, no more than
a casual fraction of an hour in any day, so
I could not have lost a single speech, unless a
very short one. These notes were one of the few
things that historians have from this time, as delegates were
forbidden from talking about anything in the proceedings in fear
of leaking it to the public, the opposite of modern transparency,

(08:38):
and the notes themselves were not published until after he died.
In seventeen eighty four, Madison returns to Montpelier to study
law and to attempt an unsuccessful career in land speculation.
He was a genuine intellectual. He wasn't the kind of
guy who's going to be very good at going out
and figuring out the right places to buy land and
then holding out until he got the price he wanted.

(08:59):
Who didn't end. He wanted to read books. He wanted
to think. He wanted to be part of the life
of the mind. He then served again in the Virginia
House of Dougas from seventeen eighty four to seventeen eighty six,
while they helped to ratify Jefferson's the Statute of Virginia
for Religious Freedom. At the time, Jefferson was serving as
Minister of France and was not able to advocate for

(09:21):
his statute. This was truly a great breakthrough moment. Madison
wrote to the General Assembly the Commonwealth of Virginia on
June twentieth, seventeen eighty five. And I'm quoting this because
it's so important in such a key break in the
development of religious liberty. Quote. 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

(09:43):
it as these may dictate. This right is in its
nature and unalienable right. It is unalienable because the opinions
of men, depending only on the evidence contemplated by their
own minds, cannot follow the dictates of other men. It
is unalienable also because what is here a right towards men,
is a duty towards the Creator. Now remember, Jefferson and

(10:06):
Madison are arguing for your right of conscience. And a
time when virtually every government had an official religion, and
for example, the British, for a very long period of
time persecuted priests because they represented an alien Catholic religion
based in Rome and they did not represent the Church
of England. Conversely, there were Catholic countries which would prosecute

(10:29):
Protestants because they weren't obedient to the dominant religion. So
this whole notion that your conscience, not the government's rules,
are what will define religion was an enormous breakthrough and
a great expansion of human freedom. Now, Madison kept working
on how do we get to a strong enough government,

(10:50):
and in preparation for the seventeen eighty seven Constitutional Convention,
Madison drafted what would later be known as the Virginia Plan.
He spent thirty six months about that three years in
the library studying political philosophy and past attempts at forming government.
The Virginia Plan outlined a government consisting of three branches

(11:10):
with checks and balances. This was really based on the
work of a French theoretician, Montesquieu, who'd come up with
this notion that you could maximize freedom by balancing power
between three different elements. If I could quote from the
time quote resolved that his depinion of this committee that
a national government ought to be established, consisting of a

(11:32):
supreme legislative, judiciary, and executive, and of course those of
the building blocks of the US Constitution. And we today
work within the framework that Madison had defined He's often
referred to as the father of the Constitution, but he
argued it was a team effort, writing in a letter

(11:52):
to Wim Cogswell on March tenth, eighteen thirty four, quote,
you give me a credit to which I have no
claim in calling me the leader of the Constitution of
the United States. 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. Now that sense, I think was sincere. In

(12:14):
Madison's part, he realized something we sometimes forget in the
egocentric Washington of today, that it takes teams for a
free society to govern itself. It takes teams to get
things done. And Ronald Reagan used to have a little
sign on his desk that said, it's amazing what you
can get done if you don't mind who gets the credit.
I think Madison thoroughly understood that principle. Once the Constitution

(12:54):
was presented to the States for ratification, Madison, along with
Jefferson and Jay, published a series of newspaper essays, and Madison, Jay,
and Hamilton wrote the Federalist Papers writing under the pseudonym Publius,
Madison authored twenty nine of the essays, published between October
seventeen eighty seven and May seventeen eighty eight. In his

(13:16):
twenty nine essays, Madison argued the case for a strong
central government with checks and balances. No one emphasizes. The
founding fathers were as concerned about government being too powerful
as they were concerned about government being too weak, and
they wanted to protect you from the very government that
they had set up to protect the nation. In Federalist

(13:38):
Paper number fifty one, Madison wrote, and this is the
very famous quote, if men were angels, no government would
be necessary. If angels were to government, neither external nor
internal controls. When government would be necessary. In framing a
government which is to be administered by men over men,
the great difficulty lies in this. You must first to

(14:00):
enable the government to control the government, and in the
next place oblige it to control itself. Close quote. And
I would argue that that is the central crisis of
the American system today. There is none of the sense
of balance that Madison and Jefferson believed in so deeply.
After the ratification of the Constitution, Madison attempted to run
for the Senate, but Patrick Henry, who had been opposed

(14:23):
to the Constitution and wanted a strong Virginia, successfully worked
against him. Instead, Madison won the election to the US
House of Representatives in seventeen eighty nine, ironically over James Monroe,
who later on to become president following Madison. Madison served
in the US House until seventeen ninety seven, at a
time of enormous initial creation of all the principles of

(14:46):
the House. So he's there as somebody very widely respected,
very well known, and at first he doesn't want a
bill of rights. He argues that quote, the government can
only exert the power specified by the count Institution. But
his friend Jefferson was adamantly in favor of a bill
of rights, thought the Constitution was too strong and would

(15:08):
become a danger to freedom. Jefferson's view was spreading throughout
the States, and there was a real danger that the
Constitution could only be ratified with a bill of rights.
So Madison, accepting reality, compiles a list of nineteen proposals
out of hundreds of suggestions they got from the state's
ratification debates. In his notes for speech in Congress, written

(15:31):
around June seventeen eighty nine, Madison outlined his reasons for
urging the amendments. These included first to prove that federalists
are the friends to liberty, Second to remove any remaining worries,
Third to bring in North Carolina and Rhode Island, and
fourth to improve the constitution. Notice the practicality, it's North

(15:52):
Carolina and Rhode Island that won't come in. Therefore you
have to have some kind of compromise. In these notes,
Madison wrote that the Bill of Rights was useful, not essential,
and that's because he actually thought the Constitution that he
had helped draft already limited government. But people like Jefferson
wanted a little extra guarantee, if you will, that even

(16:14):
a bad government would be restricted. And most of the
time the Supreme Court has interpreted the Bill of Rights
to in fact restrict government. The Bill of Rights was
the rights of individuals against government. Something we tend to
forget that our founding fathers were as much afraid of
strong central government as they felt the need to have
the government strong enough to defend us from foreigners. The

(16:35):
Congress looked at the nineteen proposals, ultimately adopted twelve of
them as amendments. On October tewod, seventeen eighty nine, President
George Washington sent copies of these twelve amendments to states,
and by December fifteenth, seventeen ninety one, three forces the
States who ratified ten of them, and they became what
we call the Bill of Rights. While in the House Representatives,

(16:56):
Madison worked with President Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Inventeen ninety
one and seventeen ninety two, Madison disagreed with Secuary Treasury
Hamilton's proposal to establish a national bank. He further broke
with the Federalist Party over the support of Great Britain
during its war with France. Remember we'd just been fighting
with Britain a decade earlier for our freedom, and here

(17:17):
we were now siding with Britain against the French Revolution. Madison,
with Jefferson and some anti Federalists, founded the Democratic Republican Party.
Madison spoke often on the idea of political parties. In
a speech to the Constitutional Convention on the Right of
Suffrage in August seventeen eighty sevent he said, quote, no

(17:37):
free country has ever been without parties, which are a
natural offspring of freedom A generation later, in a June
twenty fifth, eighteen twenty four, letter to Henry Lee, he wrote, quote,
the Constitution itself, whether written or prescriptive, influenced as his
exposition and administration will be by those causes, must be

(17:57):
an unfailing source of party distinctions, and the very peculiarity
which gives pre eminent value to that of the United States.
The partition of power between different governments, as well as
between different departments of government opens a new door for
controversies and parties. So Madison understands the reality that in
a free society people will organize themselves into parties, and

(18:20):
his study of political systems over the ages had convinced
him that it was almost a natural evolution, something which
Washington wished would not have happened, but in fact Madison
knew it would inevitably happen. In seventeen ninety nine, Madison
returned to the Virginia House of Delegates, where he campaigned
for Thomas Jefferson to be the third President of the

(18:41):
United States, and when Jefferson won, Madison became Secretary of
State and stayed there until his own election to the
presidency in eighteen oh eight. As Secretary of State, Madison
helped to persuade Congress to ratify and fund the Louisiana Purchase,
which doubled the size of the country. Look at a
map sometime and realize that when the French decided they

(19:02):
couldn't defend their control of what had been Spanish territory
starting with New Orleans, and that they would sell the
United States the Mississippi and all of its tributaries, which
includes the Missouri. They were literally for fifteen million dollars,
giving up half of a continent. And it's an enormous moment,

(19:22):
and Madison is the only people who convinced Congress to
pay for it. And a July twenty ninth, eighteen oh
three letter to Robert Livingston, Madison wrote, it will be
of great importance to take the regulation and settlement of
that territory out of other hands into those the United
States will be able to manage, both for the general
interest and conveniency. Despite their efforts, Jefferson and Madison could

(19:44):
not convince the Spanish to sell West Florida had they
not bought the Louisiana purchase, and had either the French
or the Spanish or some other country maintained it the
United States would have been truncated, stopping at the Mississippi River.
That's how big a decision was. As it is, they
went all the way to the Pacific, in line with

(20:20):
what Washington had done. Thomas Jefferson refused to run for
a third term, endorsing Madison instead. The Federalist Party candidate
Charles Coatsworth Pinckney unsuccessfully ran for president in the election
of eighteen oh four, losing to Jefferson. Almost immediately, anti
Madison newspapers published across the country with cartoons ridiculing Madison's

(20:42):
small stature and Jefferson's embargo of all trade with England
and France. The Federalist Party charged that Madison supported the
embargo to build up domestic manufacturing at the expense of
foreign trade. One critic asked, why is the embargo like sickness,
because it weakens us. It was not just a Federalist
Party that was against Madison. A small group of Democratic

(21:04):
Republicans were also against Madison as a candidate, fearing that
Madison's quiet nature meant he was a Hamiltonian Federalist in disguise.
Jefferson stood up for his friend and convinced some members
of the Democratic Republican Party to vote for Madison. George Clinton,
Jefferson's vice president, was among these, and he, after accepting
the vice presidential nomination with Madison, announced his own candidacy

(21:29):
for president. But Madison won by a landslide of one
hundred and twenty two electoral votes against Pickney's forty seven.
Clinton managed to squeeze six electoral votes from his home state.
Madison carried twelve states to Pinckney's five, which means, of course,
four of the first five presidents were in fact from
the state of Virginia. After Madison was elected, but before

(21:53):
Jefferson left office, Congress passed the Non Intercourse Act of
eighteen oh nine, replacing jeffersons in bard. This allowed world
trade except for Britain and France to resume. The bill
also said that if England and France removed their trade restrictions,
the president could resume trade. However, when neither country responded

(22:14):
to the request to remove restrictions, Congress passed Mason's Bill
number two, a bill that removed their trade restrictions for
three months, stating that have just one of them removed
their restrictions in American trade by March three, eighteen eleven,
and the other one failed to do so within three months,
the President would reinstate the restrictions on the other country.

(22:35):
France decided to remove their restrictions through the Cadore Letter
of August eighteen ten, leading Madison to implement Macon's Bill
number two and two stages, first in November eighteen ten
and then in March eighteen eleven. The British insisted that
American ships would continue to be seized until France lifted

(22:55):
their restriction on British trade, thus treating US exports as
part of their war strategy. Congress responded by voting for
military preparations and in April eighteen twelve a ninety day embargo.
Madison came before Congress with his list of complaints against
the British, including the arming of Indians and trade restrictions.

(23:17):
The House voted for war on June fourth, eighteen twelve. However,
the Senate debated for more than two weeks and would
not vote for war until June seventeenth. For Madison, this
issue of war provided the opportunity to seize Canada and
drive the Spanish from West Florida, which they unsuccessfully tried
to obtain. During the Jefferson administration, Madison and the pro

(23:39):
War members wanted a land invasion of Canada. Their plan
was to separate Upper Canada around modern day Ontario from
the northwest part, cutting off the pro British Indian tribes
from British colonies which supported them. This plan ended in
a disaster, and by the fall of eighteen twelve, one
American force surrendered it Detroit, another was defeated near Niagara Falls,

(24:03):
and a third never made it across the Niagara River.
In just a few months, much of the Northwest territory
fell to British forces. In the spring of eighteen thirteen,
things were looking up when commodore Oliver Hazard Perry defeated
a British fleet on the southwestern tip of Lake Erie,
followed by a sacking of the Canadian capital of York,

(24:24):
which is the present day Toronto. This allowed for Madison
to send a force commanded by future President William Henry Harrison,
against the Native American leader to Cumsa at the Battle
of the Thames in western Ontario. They beat the Indians badly,
and of course, that set the stage for Harrison to
become a hero and eventually president. However, things went back

(24:45):
against the United States in late spring eighteen fourteen as
the British, who had now defeated Napoleon, shifted their resources
against the Americans and went on the offensive. British troops
raided American ports from Georgia to Maine, and they occupied
half of Maine. British troops then targeted the nation's capitol
in Washington, DC. The American government fell, with British troops

(25:08):
torching the White House and many other federal buildings in
retaliation for burning the Canadian Parliament buildings the year earlier.
In fact, in my entire congressional career, I kept going
up and down a very curvy stone stairway, which is
called the British stairway, because that's what they ran up
with the torches in order to burn down the Capitol.

(25:29):
The British were stalled in Baltimore. They were unable to
get past Fort McHenry, And actually it was a great
ironic moment. They had taken Francis Scott Key on board
the British ship, and we're holding him because they thought
he knew some secrets and they didn't want him to
reveal them in terms of whether the British were going
to land. So he's watching the night long battle in

(25:52):
which the British tried to bombard Fort McHenry and force
it to surrender. Francis Scott Key writes a poem, the
Star Banner. It's attached to a British drinking song and
becomes the national anthem. But it's based on real history,
which is this night where he really could see the
Star Spangled banner still waving despite all the effort of

(26:14):
the British bombardment. However, the British then turned their sights
to New Orleans and wanted to use that city in
the coming peace negotiations. They thought if they could seize
New Orleans, that would give them a bargaining chip. About
six thousand British soldiers moved against the city. These were
professional soldiers who had done very well in the Peninsula campaign,
had stood up against the French army. By any reasonable projection,

(26:37):
they were going to win. New Orleans was protected by
four thousand American soldiers commanded by Andrew Jackson, and with
New Orleans citizens rallying to the cause. Now, this was
one of those cases where the British didn't understand that
Americans had lived a lifetime with rifles. Because the Americans

(26:57):
almost universally had been involved in hunting, and because they
had rifles which fired much longer than muskets, and because
they were basically protecting themselves behind cotton bales, the British
were just going to get slaughtered, and they didn't get it.
As something they would never have done against Napoleon. They
charged across the field because they had contempt for the Americans.

(27:18):
Of the six thousand British soldiers, about two thousand died
within a few minutes. The remaining British soldiers were demoralized,
threw down their weapons and surrendered immediately. For two thousand
British dead, about seventy Americans died. However, the peace treaty
had already been made about two weeks earlier, but because
of communications, nobody knew it, so what happened was in

(27:41):
an unnecessary battle. The British were both defeated and lost
a number of very fine soldiers. The Americans won a
great victory, and frankly, from the standpoint of American history,
it is winning in New Orleans that launches Andrew Jackson
into a career which becomes one of the most powerful
in the first half of the nineth teenth century at
changing America and creating a more populous nation. While the

(28:05):
war ultimately failed, the few victories did return Madison to
a high point of popularity around the country. Throughout the war,
many New England merchants ignored trade embargoes, traded freely with
both France and Britain during the War of eighteen twelve,
and some Federalists talked about seceding from the Union. As
far as they were concerned, their future was in the
Atlantic Ocean, dealing with the British, not dealing with Washington,

(28:28):
d c. And Virginians. However, the Federalists ultimately understood that
the country was going to survive, and many Americans came
to the conclusion that the Federalists were sort of traders
or unpatriotic. There was already a party that had been
weakened by Jefferson and Madison, and it collapsed after this
effort to talk about secession. During Madison's presidency of the

(28:52):
War of eighteen twelve, international affairs took up a lot
of his time, but the one domestic issue of the
country dealt with was the recharge uttering of the Bank
of the United States, whose charter was set to expire
in eighteen twelve. Remember, the charter of the original bank
had been Alexander Hamilton's great effort to create a national
financial system that would enable the economy to grow. Now,

(29:14):
the rechartering of the bank had three different camps in Congress,
Democratic Republicans who thought the bank was unconstitutional, state backing
interests that were tired of having a federal bank, an
anti British federalist who objected to stock in the bank
held by Britains. So the War of eighteen twelve started
without a national bank that could support war loans. In

(29:36):
eighteen sixteen, with Madison's support, which was a switch from
his opposition against Hamilton the generation earlier, the second bank
was chartered with a twenty year term. Critics of Madison
claimed that his support of a national bank revealed he
was really a federalist. And it's interesting that Madison, I think,
partly because of his style, being quiet, being studious, being intellectual,

(29:59):
he did didn't feel like the kind of populist the
Jefferson and the Jeffersonians were the most comfortable, but in
fact he was probably their best thinker as a Jeffersonian.
Madison's nomination for second term came fifteen days before the
announcement of the War of eighteen twelve. Madison won the
endorsement of Congress, but about one third of the Democratic

(30:20):
Republican legislators boycotted the nominating caucus altogether. For second place,
the caucus chose John Langdon of New Hampshire. However, Langdon declined,
and they then chose Eldridge Gary, a signer of the
Declaration of Independence. Remember it is Elbridge Gary who ultimately
draws a map in eighteen twelve in Massachusetts, which had

(30:41):
a congressional district that looked really weird, and somebody said
that looks like a salamander, and somebody said, no, no,
that's a jerryman. And that's where the term jerrymander comes from.
A group of New York Democratic Republicans who participated in
the boycott supported DeWitt Clinton, the nephew of former Vice
President George Clinton, who had died during Madison's term. They

(31:03):
were hoping to form a coalition opposed to Madison for
not moving decisively towards war, and American citizens who wanted
almost anyone in office but Madison. These Democratic Republicans met
with the Federalist Party to discuss a unification strategy, and
Clinton was nominated for president for the Federalist Party, with
Jared Ingisol for Vice President. Clinton, who unlike Madison, was

(31:25):
only a New York mayor and had no national claim,
chose to tailor their election against Madison, saying quote one
thing to war Democratic Republicans, another to peace Democratic Republicans,
and something else again to anti war Federalists. Their message
actually turned Federalist John Quincy Adams against his party, and

(31:46):
he decided to endorse Madison. Madison easily won, carrying one
hundred and twenty eight electoral votes to Clinton's eighty nine.
Madison chose not to run for a third time, which
reinforced George Washington's press and in fact, up until Franklin
del and Roosevelt, nobody would run beyond two terms. Madison

(32:07):
goes back home to his plantation Montelier to live out
the rest of his life. While he was retired, he
was a real strong supporter of Jefferson's University of Virginia,
serving on its board, succeeding Jefferson as head of the
University in eighteen twenty six. Three years later, Madison served
again as a delegate at the Virginia Constitutional Convention, negotiating

(32:28):
compromises between the large slave holding plantations and Western farmers.
While delegate, he denounced the right of states to declare
federal laws un constitutional when they went against state interest.
He was also a founding member of the American Colonization Society,
which favored the gradual abolition of slavery and resetting slaves
and free blacks back to Africa. On June twenty eight,

(32:51):
eighteen thirty six, after being bed bound for chronic rheumatism
and livered dysfunction for six months, Madison died. His family
hoped he would make it to the fourth of July
because he wanted him to die on that day, like
President Jefferson, President Adams, and President Monroe, all of whom
had managed to die on our national holiday. I think

(33:14):
it's important to recognize that Madison shapes so much of
our politics. He shapes the Constitution, he shapes the Bill
of Rights, He really shapes the way the House functions
as an institution. He is a perennial figure who, over
a period of almost forty years is decisively involved in
creating the America that we now live in, and I

(33:36):
think that Madison in that sense clearly is an immortal.
Thank you for listening to Founding Father's Week on Newtsworld.
You can learn more about James Madison on our show
page at newtsworld dot com. Newtsworld is produced by Gingish
three sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is Guarnsey Sloan

(33:58):
and our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the
show was created by Steve Penley. Special thanks the team
at Gingrich three sixty. If you've been enjoying Newtsworld, I
hope you'll go to Apple Podcast and both rate us
with five stars and give us a review so others
can learn what it's all about. Right now, listeners of

(34:19):
Newtsworld can sign up for my three free weekly columns
at ginrichthree sixty dot com slash newsletter I'm knew Gingrich,
this is Newtsworld