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U.S. Presidents & Presidency: Madison

A topic guide covering the Presidents of the United States. This is an ongoing project. As such, additional individuals will be added over time.

James Madison

James Madison served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 - 1817. Madison was noted as the writer of the first drafts of the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Madison owned enslaved people, bringing several with him to the White House. "He adhered to the established social norms of Virginia society when it came to the treatment and living conditions of his enslaved household" (White House History). 

Madison died at his home, Montpelier, on June 28, 1836.

Resources

Reference, Archives, & Primary Sources

James Madison's Conference

How did James Madison become the prime mover of the United States Constitution? The key, it turns out, is a 1786 conference he organized between several states. Originally intended to discuss commercial regulations, the assembly would transform into a deliberation over how to put the Confederation out of business.

Source: Kanopy

James Madison - 4th U.S. President & Father of the Constitution

Watch a short biography video on James Madison, the fourth President of the United States and the "Father of the Constitution."

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EivTHLKaa9s

Perspectives

James Madison

This majestic new biography of James Madison explores the astonishing story of a man of vaunted modesty who audaciously changed the world. Among the Founding Fathers, Madison was a true genius of the early republic. Outwardly reserved, Madison was the intellectual driving force behind the Constitution and crucial to its ratification. His visionary political philosophy and rationale for the union of states-so eloquently presented in The Federalist papers-helped shape the country Americans live in today.

James Madison

James Madison led one of the most influential and prolific lives in American history, and his story,although all too often overshadowed by his more celebrated contemporaries,is integral to that of the nation. Madison helped to shape our country as perhaps no other Founder: collabourating on the Federalist Papers and the Bill of Rights, resisting government overreach by assembling one of the nation's first political parties (the Republicans, who became today's Democrats), and taking to the battlefield during the War of 1812, becoming the last president to lead troops in combat. In this penetrating biography, eminent historian Richard Brookhiser presents a vivid portrait of the Father of the Constitution," an accomplished yet humble statesman who nourished Americans' fledgling liberty and vigorously defended the laws that have preserved it to this day.

A Perfect Union

An extraordinary American comes to life in this vivid, groundbreaking portrait of the early days of the republic - and the birth of modern politics When the roar of the Revolution had finally died down, a new generation of American politicians was summoned to the Potomac to assemble the nation's newly minted capital. Into that unsteady atmosphere, which would soon enough erupt into another conflict with Britain in 1812, Dolley Madison arrived, alongside her husband, James. Within a few years, she had mastered both the social and political intricacies of the city, and by her death in 1849 was the most celebrated person in Washington. Andyet, to most Americans, she's best known for saving a portrait from the burning White House, or as the namesake for a line of ice cream.Why did her contemporaries give so much adulation to a lady so little known today? In A Perfect Union, Catherine Allgor reveals that while Dolley's gender prevented her from openly playing politics, those very constraints of womanhood allowed her to construct an American democratic ruling style, and to achieve her husband's political goals. And the way that she did so - by emphasizing cooperation over coercion, building bridges instead of bunkers - has left us with not only an important story about our past but a model for a modern form of politics.Introducing a major new American historian, A Perfect Union is both an illuminating portrait of an unsung founder of our democracy, and a vivid account of a little-explored time in our history.

James Madison's War

The "age of the Founders" ends with the War of 1812 and James Madison at the helm of government. You'll learn why the United States was disastrously unprepared for war, and you'll get a closer look at the state of the nation as it was bequeathed to Madison's successor, James Monroe.

Source: Kanopy

John Quincy Adams: Longevity and “a Remarkable Transformation”

 

David Waldstreicher, Distinguished Professor of History at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, introduces the new two-volume set of diaries by John Quincy Adams that he edited for Library of America. Begun in 1779, when Adams was twelve years old, and kept more or less faithfully until his death almost seventy years later, the diary is an extraordinary record of historical events and personalities from America’s founding to the era just before the Civil War. They also reflect Adams's growing conviction that slavery was the central issue in American politics. 

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiLDjQp1_2s