ExclusiveJAMES MADISON: AUTHOR OF THE CONSTITUTION

There are some names which are intrinsically linked with the history of the United States of America. Many of these names are those of the founding fathers. But all too often, these names are nothing more than just names. Each of these individuals was a fascinating person, so it can be so enlightening to learn more about who these important people were as individuals. Today we're going to talk about the fourth president of the United States, James Madison. Welcome to American Legends. My name is Tiffany Brannan. It can be one thing to start something great, but it's quite another to continue doing something great. And that's very much what we see when you study the early history of the United States, particularly the early presidents. These great minds had come up with the concept of the Declaration of Independence and the idea of freedom, and then eventually written the Constitution, and even had the first U.S. president. But as a few years turned into a few decades, the great challenge was to see whether the United States was really a government which could continue, separate from England, and go through difficult times, weather storms, and eventually engage in wars. And these were the challenges faced by James Madison, the fourth president of the United States. From Virginia, like two of the other presidents who came before him, he had a rich history in not only the early American government, but also in the founding of all our forms of government. He was very instrumental in the Continental Congress, and he served in the Virginia legislature. He was the youngest man who was involved in the writing of the Constitution, and he even was seen as the secretary of sorts. He kept notes on everything, and as a result, he had some of the best ideas about what these concepts of liberty and freedom really could be in a legal sense. He had great education himself, having gone to New Jersey University, which was called Princeton later. And while there, he studied Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and became very interested in political science. He came from a plantation in Virginia, which was called Mount Pleasant, and it would eventually be renamed Montpellier, which would be his eventual inheritance and habitation. He was good friends with some of the other early presidents who were on the Democratic-Republican side. You see, in the early days, these two political parties began to form. Federalist, which was more leaning toward the British way of doing things, the more formal central government, and Democratic-Republican, which was more French-inspired and sought to give the states control. Now, Thomas Jefferson was a Democratic-Republican, and he was the president who came before James Madison. Madison was very good friends with Thomas Jefferson, and he agreed with him in a lot of these political matters. When Jefferson was president, he appointed James Madison as his secretary of state. One of the most notable trials which Madison endured was that he was president during the War of 1812. In the United States, Americans viewed it as the second war for independence from the British. It all started when the British began attacking American ships, and there were several reasons they did that. Firstly, they wanted to keep the trade from happening between America and France. They wanted to keep Americans from helping France during their war, and vice versa. They also wanted to seize the ships and take the American sailors to put them on British ships so that they could fight in the British Navy. Americans did not take kindly to this, so it was James Madison's duty to go before Congress and ask for a declaration of war. You see, at that time, the president himself could not declare war. He had to ask Congress to do so. Now, he's received some criticism for how he handled the war at the time and now, but after the war was over, everyone praised him for not punishing, fining, or imprisoning any of his political opponents. James Madison believed very strongly in the freedom of speech, even if it was directed against him. And that isn't surprising when you look at what his background in history was. He's often given the title, Father of the Constitution, because he was one of the main writers of it. He also wrote the Federalist Papers, which was a collection of essays and writings taken from these different congresses, which he put together with a few other founding fathers. In this work, he described the ideas about how we could have an independent nation and take some of these concepts, such as the French Enlightenment, and these ideas about men being created equal, and how we could put it to use and put it to work in the new world. Later, he drafted what would become the Bill of Rights and would be the first 10 amendments to the Constitution. He didn't want them to be amendments to the Constitution. He hoped they would just be more articles, but they ended up being ratified as the first 10 amendments. And in these Bill of Rights, he talked about certain inalienable privileges and safeguards against too much power. One of his more famous quotes is that, if men were angels, no form of government would be needed. And also, if angels governed men, there would need to be no checks and balances, because they would rule divinely. But the problem is that men rule over men, and power corrupts. Anytime you have a form of government, it can easily turn into a tyranny. So he was very concerned about that and careful to safeguard those new freedoms. Like Thomas Jefferson, James Madison wanted to make the government, the White House, and his presidency more friendly and open to people of all ranks. So he and Dolly made it a very important part of their time in office to be open, welcoming, and less formal. Their gatherings became so popular and so crowded over their eight years that eventually became known as squeezes, because people were squeezed in. He continued the practice, like Thomas Jefferson, of using a handshake instead of a bow, and being generally just more French, more informal. During Madison's time in office, two new states were added to the Union, the state of Louisiana, which was part of the Louisiana Purchase, and was before that called the New Orleans Territory, and the state of Indiana, which was called the Indian Territory. And thus, the rest of the Louisiana Purchase was named the Missouri Territory. After his time in office, James Madison returned to Montpellier in Virginia, where he worked on all his writings and compiled the different documents about his time in office, and his work writing the Constitution, and serving in those early forms of government. He also became one of the founding members of the University of Virginia, alongside Thomas Jefferson. One of my favorite quotes from him comes from an article he wrote for the National Gazette in 1792, called Property. Conscience is the most sacred of all property. Other property, depending in part on positive law, the exercise of that being a natural and unalienable right. He went on to describe how, yes, your home may be your castle, and it's important to guard that, but nothing is more important than guarding the interior castle of your conscience, and doing what you know to be the right thing, above all else. James Madison is an excellent example of someone who saw what he wanted and went after it. He didn't let things like a shorter stature and a naturally shy personality keep him from going after his goals. He was very motivated, and he networked and made friends with the right people, and above all, did the hard work of founding the government of the United States. Seeing as those early days, it went from one founding father to another in terms of presidency, you can see that not all of these gentlemen had great aspirations, necessarily, to be president. They simply wanted to serve wherever they could and do it well, whether that was in the Virginia legislature, serving in the war, being an ambassador, working in a congress, being vice president, secretary of state, or eventually president of the United States. Each of these gentlemen is a great example of how we all can search for how to be better citizens, and better members of our own country and our society, by seeking to further our knowledge and our learning, and above all, staying true to the conscience and a moral sense of what is the right thing to do. Thank you for spending this time with me talking about the fourth president of the United States, James Madison, who may have been the shortest, but certainly was not the smallest in terms of his greatness. I encourage you to be inspired by his example of rising to great heights through determination and hard work. Thank you for watching. Goodbye.