James Madison Essay

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James Madison

Born in 1751, Madison was brought up in Orange County, Virginia, and attended Princeton (then called the College of New Jersey). A student of history and government,
well-read in law, he participated in putting together the Virginia Constitution in 1776, served in the Continental Congress, and was a leader in the Virginia Assembly. When
delegates to the Constitutional Convention assembled at Philadelphia, the 36-year-old Madison took frequent part in the debates.
Madison made a major contribution to the ratification of the Constitution by writing, with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, the Federalist essays. In later years, when he was
referred to as the "Father of the Constitution," Madison protested that the document was not "the off-spring of a single brain," but "the work of many heads and many hands."
In Congress, he helped write the Bill of Rights and impose the first revenue legislation. Out of his leadership in opposition to Hamilton"s financial proposals, which he felt
would excessively bestow wealth and power upon northern financiers, came the development of the Republican, or Jeffersonian, Party. As President Jefferson"s Secretary of
State, Madison protested to warring France and Britain that their seizure of American ships was conflicting with international law. The protests, John Randolph commented, had
the effect of "a shilling pamphlet hurled against eight hundred ships of war." Despite the unpopular Embargo Act of 1807, which did not make the belligerent nations change
their ways but did cause a depression in the United States, Madison was elected President in 1808. Before he took office the Embargo Act was repealed.
During the first year of Madison"s Administration, the United States banned trade with both Britain and France; then in May, 1810, Congress authorized trade with both,
directing the President, if either would accept America"s view of neutral...