ExclusiveJames Madison_ War of 1812, Constitution & Freedom

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 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, his critics. You see, the second president of the United States, John Adams, had passed the Alien and Sedition Act, which made it a crime to criticize the current administration and could even result in the deportation of foreigners, and that was for the very reason of avoiding this conflict that was beginning to stir between England, France, and America being caught in the middle. But 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.