James Madison

After Virginia ratified the constitution, Madison returned to New York and resumed his duties in the Congress of the Confederation. With concerns both for his political career and over the possibility that Henry and his allies would arrange for a second constitutional convention, Madison ran for the House of Representatives.[68][69] At Henry's behest, the Virginia legislature created congressional districts designed to deny Madison a seat, and Henry recruited Monroe, a strong challenger to Madison. Locked in a difficult race against Monroe, Madison promised to support a series of constitutional amendments to protect individual liberties.[68] In an open letter, Madison wrote that, while he had opposed requiring alterations to the Constitution before ratification, he now believed that "amendments, if pursued with a proper moderation and in a proper mode ... may serve the double purpose of satisfying the minds of well-meaning opponents, and of providing additional guards in favor of liberty."[70] Madison's promise paid off, as in Virginia's 5th district election, he gained a seat in Congress with 57 percent of the vote.[71]

Madison became a key adviser to Washington, who valued Madison's understanding of the constitution.[68] Madison helped Washington write his first inaugural address, and also prepared the official House response to Washington's speech. He played a significant role in establishing and staffing the three Cabinet departments, and his influence helped Thomas Jefferson become the first Secretary of State.[72] At the start of the first Congress, he introduced a tariff bill similar to the one he had advocated for under the Articles of the Confederation,[73] and Congress established a federal tariff on imports by enacting the Tariff of 1789.[74] The following year, Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton introduced an ambitious economic program that called for the federal assumption of state debts and the funding of that debt through the issuance of federal securities. Hamilton's plan favored Northern speculators and was disadvantageous to states, such as Virginia, that had already paid off most of their debt; and Madison emerged as one of the principal Congressional opponents of the plan.[75] After prolonged legislative deadlock, Madison, Jefferson, and Hamilton agreed to the Compromise of 1790, which provided for the enactment of Hamilton's assumption plan, as part of the Funding Act of 1790. In return, Congress passed the Residence Act, which established the federal capital district of Washington, D.C., on the Potomac River.[76]

During the first Congress, Madison took the lead in advocating for several constitutional amendments to the Bill of Rights.[77] His primary goals were to fulfill his 1789 campaign pledge and to prevent the calling of a second constitutional convention, but he also hoped to protect individual liberties against the actions of the federal government and state legislatures. He believed that the enumeration of specific rights would fix those rights in the public mind and encourage judges to protect them.[78] After studying over two-hundred amendments that had been proposed at the state ratifying conventions,[79] Madison introduced the Bill of Rights on June 8, 1789. His amendments contained numerous restrictions on the federal government and would protect, among other things, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and the right to peaceful assembly.[80] While most of his proposed amendments were drawn from the ratifying conventions, Madison was largely responsible for proposals to guarantee freedom of the press, protect property from government seizure, and ensure jury trials.[79] He also proposed an amendment to prevent states from abridging "equal rights of conscience, or freedom of the press, or the trial by jury in criminal cases".[81]

Madison's Bill of Rights faced little opposition; he had largely co-opted the Anti-Federalist goal of amending the Constitution but had avoided proposing amendments that would alienate supporters of the Constitution.[82] Madison's proposed amendments were largely adopted by the House of Representatives, but the Senate made several changes.[83] Madison's proposal to apply parts of the Bill of Rights to the states was eliminated, as was his change to the Constitution's preamble which Madison thought would be enhanced by including a prefatory paragraph indicating that governmental power is vested by the people.[84] Madison was disappointed that the Bill of Rights did not include protections against actions by state governments,[lower-alpha 4] but the passage of the document mollified some critics of the original constitution and shored up Madison's support in Virginia.[79] Of the twelve amendments formally proposed by Congress to the states, ten amendments were ratified on December 15, 1791, becoming known as the Bill of Rights.[86][lower-alpha 5]

Thomas Jefferson founded the Democratic-Republican Party with Madison and broadly represented Southern interests.

After 1790, the Washington administration became polarized into two main factions. One faction, led by Jefferson and Madison, broadly represented Southern interests and sought close relations with France which became the Democratic-Republican Party opposition to Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton. The other faction, led by Hamilton and the Federalists, broadly represented Northern financial interests and favored close relations with Britain.[88] In 1791, Hamilton introduced a plan that called for the establishment of a national bank to provide loans to emerging industries and oversee the money supply.[89] Madison and the Democratic-Republican Party fought back against Hamilton's attempt to expand the power of the Federal Government with the formation of a national bank. Therefore, they opposed Hamilton's plan for the formation of a national bank and Madison argued that under the Constitution, Congress did not have the power to create such an institution.[90] Despite Madison's opposition, Congress passed a bill to create the First Bank of the United States, which Washington signed into law in February 1791.[89] As Hamilton implemented his economic program and Washington continued to enjoy immense prestige as president, Madison became increasingly concerned that Hamilton would seek to abolish the federal republic in favor of a centralized monarchy.[91]

When Hamilton submitted his Report on Manufactures, which called for federal action to stimulate the development of a diversified economy, Madison once again challenged Hamilton's proposal.[92] Along with Jefferson, Madison helped Philip Freneau establish the National Gazette, a Philadelphia newspaper that attacked Hamilton's proposals.[93] In an essay published in the new newspaper in September 1792, Madison wrote that the country had divided into two factions: his faction, which believed "that mankind are capable of governing themselves", and Hamilton's faction, which allegedly sought the establishment of an aristocratic monarchy and was biased in favor of the wealthy.[94] Those opposed to Hamilton's economic policies, including many former Anti-Federalists, coalesced into the Democratic–Republican Party,[lower-alpha 6] while those who supported the administration's policies coalesced into the Federalist Party.[96] In the 1792 presidential election, both major parties supported Washington for re-election, but the Democratic–Republicans sought to unseat Vice President John Adams. Because the Constitution's rules essentially precluded Jefferson from challenging Adams,[lower-alpha 7] the party backed New York Governor George Clinton for the vice presidency, but Adams won nonetheless.[98]

With Jefferson out of office after 1793, Madison became the de facto leader of the Democratic–Republican Party.[99] When Britain and France went to war in 1793, the U.S. was caught in the middle.[100] While the differences between the Democratic–Republicans and the Federalists had previously centered on economic matters, foreign policy became an increasingly important issue, as Madison and Jefferson favored France and Hamilton favored Britain.[101] War with Britain became imminent in 1794, after the British seized hundreds of American ships that were trading with French colonies. Madison believed that a trade war with Britain would probably succeed, and would allow Americans to assert their independence fully. The British West Indies, Madison maintained, could not live without American foodstuffs, but Americans could easily do without British manufacturers.[102] Washington then secured friendly trade relations with Britain through the Jay Treaty of 1794.[103] Madison and his Democratic–Republican allies were outraged by the treaty; the Democratic–Republican Robert R. Livingston wrote to Madison that the treaty "sacrifices every essential interest and prostrates the honor of our country".[104] Madison's strong opposition to the treaty led to a permanent break with Washington, ending their friendship.[103]

On September 15, 1794, Madison married Dolley Payne Todd, a 26-year-old widow of John Todd, a Quaker farmer who died during a yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia.[105] Aaron Burr introduced Madison to her, at his request, after Dolley had stayed in the same boardinghouse as Burr in Philadelphia. After an arranged meeting in early 1794, the two quickly became romantically engaged and prepared for a wedding that summer, but Dolley suffered recurring illnesses because of her exposure to yellow fever in Philadelphia. They eventually traveled to Harewood in Virginia for their wedding. Only a few close family members attended, and Winchester Reverend Alexander Balmain presided.[106] She became a renowned figure in Washington, D.C., and excelled at hosting dinners and other important political occasions.[107] Dolley subsequently helped to establish the modern image of the first lady of the United States as an individual who has a leading role in the social affairs of the nation.[108]

Madison never had children, but he adopted Dolley's one surviving son, John Payne Todd (known as Payne), after the marriage.[109] Some of his colleagues, such as Monroe and Burr, would later infer that Madison was infertile and that his lack of offspring weighed on his thoughts; but Madison never spoke of any such distress.[110] Nonetheless, his fertility has come into question in recent years, following a popular 2007 article in The Washington Post, in which an African-American named Bettye Kearse claimed to be a descendant of Madison and a slave named Coreen.[111][112]

Washington chose to retire after serving two terms and, in advance of the 1796 presidential election, Madison helped convince Jefferson to run for the presidency.[99] Despite Madison's efforts, Federalist candidate John Adams defeated Jefferson, taking a narrow majority of the electoral vote.[113] Under the rules of the Electoral College then in place, Jefferson became vice president because he finished with the second-most electoral votes.[114] Madison, meanwhile, had declined to seek re-election, and he returned to Montpelier.[109] On Jefferson's advice, Adams considered appointing Madison to an American delegation charged with ending French attacks on American shipping, but Adams's cabinet members strongly opposed the idea.[115]

Though he was out of office, Madison remained a prominent Democratic–Republican leader in opposition to the Adams administration.[116][117] Madison and Jefferson believed that the Federalists were using the Quasi-War with France to justify the violation of constitutional rights by passing the Alien and Sedition Acts, and they increasingly came to view Adams as a monarchist.[118] Both Madison and Jefferson, as leaders of the Democratic–Republican party, expressed the belief that natural rights were non-negotiable even during a time of war. Madison believed that the Alien and Sedition acts formed a dangerous precedent, by giving the government the power to look past the natural rights of its people in the name of national security.[119] In response to the Alien and Sedition Acts, Jefferson argued that the states had the power to nullify federal law on the basis of the Constitution being a compact among the states. Madison rejected this view of nullification, and urged that states respond to unjust federal laws through interposition, a process by which a state legislature declared a law to be unconstitutional but did not take steps to actively prevent its enforcement. Jefferson's doctrine of nullification was widely rejected, and the incident damaged the Democratic–Republican Party as attention was shifted from the Alien and Sedition Acts to the unpopular nullification doctrine.[120]

In 1799, Madison won election to the Virginia legislature. At the same time, he and Jefferson planned for Jefferson's campaign in the 1800 presidential election.[121] Madison issued the Report of 1800, which attacked the Alien and Sedition Acts as unconstitutional. That report held that Congress was limited to legislating on its enumerated powers and that punishment for sedition violated freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Jefferson embraced the report, and it became the unofficial Democratic–Republican platform for the 1800 election.[122] With the Federalists badly divided between supporters of Hamilton and Adams, and with news of the end of the Quasi-War not reaching the United States until after the election, Jefferson and his ostensible running mate, Aaron Burr, defeated Adams, allowing Jefferson to prevail as president.[123][124]

Following Jefferson's presidency, Madison's 1808 electoral vote results

Speculation regarding Madison's potential succession of Jefferson commenced early in Jefferson's first term. Madison's status in the party was damaged by his association with the embargo, which was unpopular throughout the country and especially in the Northeast.[147] With the Federalists collapsing as a national party after 1800, the chief opposition to Madison's candidacy came from other members of the Democratic–Republican Party.[148] Madison became the target of attacks from Congressman John Randolph, a leader of a faction of the party known as the tertium quids.[149]

Randolph recruited Monroe, who had felt betrayed by the administration's rejection of the proposed Monroe–Pinkney Treaty with Britain, to challenge Madison for leadership of the party.[150] Many Northerners, meanwhile, hoped that Vice President Clinton could unseat Madison as Jefferson's successor.[151] Despite this opposition, Madison won his party's presidential nomination at the January 1808 congressional nominating caucus.[152] The Federalist Party mustered little strength outside New England, and Madison easily defeated Federalist candidate Charles Cotesworth Pinckney in the general election.[153]

On March 4, 1809, Madison took the oath of office and was inaugurated president. Unlike Jefferson, who enjoyed relatively unified support, Madison faced political opposition from Monroe and Clinton. Additionally, the Federalist Party was resurgent owing to opposition to the embargo. Aside from his planned nomination of Gallatin for secretary of state, the remaining members of Madison's Cabinet were chosen merely to further political harmony, and, according to historians Ketcham and Rutland, were largely unremarkable or incompetent.[154][155] Madison immediately faced opposition to his planned nomination of Secretary of the Treasury Gallatin as secretary of state. Madison eventually chose not to nominate Gallatin, keeping him in the treasury department.[156]

Madison settled instead for Robert Smith, the brother of Maryland Senator Samuel Smith, to be the secretary of state.[155] However, for the next two years, Madison performed most of the job of the secretary of state due to Smith's incompetence. After bitter intra-party contention, Madison finally replaced Smith with Monroe in April 1811.[157][158] With a Cabinet full of those he distrusted, Madison rarely called Cabinet meetings and instead frequently consulted with Gallatin alone.[159] Early in his presidency, Madison sought to continue Jefferson's policies of low taxes and a reduction of the national debt.[160] In 1811, Congress allowed the charter of the First Bank of the United States to lapse after Madison declined to take a strong stance on the issue.[161]

Congress had repealed the Embargo Act of 1807 shortly before Madison became president, but troubles with the British and French continued.[162] Madison settled on a new strategy that was designed to pit the British and French against each other, offering to trade with whichever country would end their attacks against American shipping. The gambit almost succeeded, but negotiations with the British collapsed in mid-1809.[163] Seeking to drive a wedge between the Americans and British, Napoleon offered to end French attacks on American shipping so long as the United States punished any countries that did not similarly end restrictions on trade.[164] Madison accepted Napoleon's proposal in the hope that it would convince the British to finally end their policy of commercial warfare. However, the British refused to change their policies, and the French reneged on their promise and continued to attack American shipping.[165].

With sanctions and other policies having failed, Madison determined that war with Britain was the only remaining option.[166] Many Americans called for a "second war of independence" to restore honor and stature to their new nation, and an angry public elected a "war hawk" Congress, led by Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun.[167] With Britain in the midst of the Napoleonic Wars, many Americans including Madison believed that the United States could easily capture Canada, at which point the U.S. could use Canada as a bargaining chip for all other disputes or simply retain control of it.[168] On June 1, 1812, Madison asked Congress for a declaration of war, stating that the United States could no longer tolerate Britain's "state of war against the United States". The declaration of war was passed along sectional and party lines, with opposition to the declaration coming from Federalists and from some Democratic–Republicans in the Northeast.[169] In the years prior to the war, Jefferson and Madison had reduced the size of the military, leaving the country with a military force consisting mostly of poorly trained militia members.[170] Madison asked Congress to quickly put the country "into an armor and an attitude demanded by the crisis", specifically recommending expansion of the army and navy.[171]

USS Constitution defeats HMS Guerriere, a significant event during the war. U.S. nautical victories boosted American morale.

Madison and his advisers initially believed the war would result in a quick American victory.[168][172] Being overconfident, Madison ordered a three front invasion of Canada, starting at Detroit, which was designed to loosen British control around American-held Fort Niagara and destroy the British supply lines from Montreal. These actions would gain leverage for concessions to protect American shipping in the Atlantic.[172] Without a standing army, Madison counted on state militias to rally to the flag and invade Canada: however, governors in the Northeast failed to cooperate.[173] As a result, Madison's first Canadian campaign ended in failure. The British army was more organized, used professional soldiers, and fostered an alliance with Native American tribes led by Tecumseh. On August 16, Major General William Hull, timidly fearing an Indian attack, quickly surrendered to British and Native American forces at Detroit.[172] On October 13, a separate force from the United States was defeated at Queenston Heights.[174][172] Commanding General Henry Dearborn, hampered by mutinous New England infantry, retreated to winter quarters near Albany, after failing to destroy Montreal's vulnerable British supply lines.[172] Lacking adequate revenue to fund the war, the Madison administration was forced to rely on high-interest loans furnished by bankers based in New York City and Philadelphia.[175]

In the 1812 presidential election, held during the early stages of the war, Madison was re-nominated without opposition.[176] A dissident group of New York Democratic-Republicans nominated DeWitt Clinton, the lieutenant governor of New York and the nephew of recently deceased Vice President George Clinton, to oppose Madison in the 1812 election. This faction of Democratic-Republicans hoped to unseat the president by forging a coalition among Democratic-Republicans opposed to the coming war, as well as those party faithful angry with Madison for not moving more decisively toward war, northerners weary of the Virginia dynasty and southern control of the White House, and disgruntled New Englanders who wanted almost anyone over Madison. Dismayed about their prospects of beating Madison, a group of top Federalists met with Clinton's supporters to discuss a unification strategy. Difficult as it was for them to join forces, they nominated Clinton for President and Jared Ingersoll, a Philadelphia lawyer, for vice president.[177] Hoping to shore up his support in the Northeast, where the War of 1812 was unpopular, Madison selected Governor Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts as his running mate.[178] Despite the maneuverings of Clinton and the Federalists, Madison won re-election, though by the narrowest margin of any election since that of 1800. He received 128 electoral votes to 89 for Clinton.[179] With Clinton winning most of the Northeast, Madison won Pennsylvania in addition to having swept the South and the West which ensured his victory.[180][181]

The British set ablaze the U.S. Capital while Madison was President on August 24, 1814.

After the disastrous start to the war, Madison accepted Russia's invitation to arbitrate, and sent a delegation led by Gallatin and John Quincy Adams (the son of former President John Adams) to Europe to negotiate a peace treaty.[168] While Madison worked to end the war, the United States experienced some impressive naval successes, by the USS Constitution and other warships, that boosted American morale.[182][172] Victorious in the Battle of Lake Erie, the U.S. crippled the supply and reinforcement of British military forces in the western theater of the war.[183] In the aftermath of the Battle of Lake Erie, General William Henry Harrison defeated the forces of the British and of Tecumseh's confederacy at the Battle of the Thames. The death of Tecumseh in that battle marked the permanent end of armed Native American resistance in the Old Northwest and any hope of a united Indian nation.[184] In March 1814, Major General Andrew Jackson broke the resistance of the British-allied Muscogee Creek in the Old Southwest with his victory at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend.[185] Despite those successes, the British continued to repel American attempts to invade Canada, and a British force captured Fort Niagara and burned the American city of Buffalo in late 1813.[186]

Battle of New Orleans took place while the Treaty of Ghent was being negotiated in 1815.

In August 1814, the British landed a large force on the shores of Chesapeake Bay and routed Winder's army at the Battle of Bladensburg.[187] The Madisons escaped capture fleeing to Virginia by horseback, however, the British burned Washington and other buildings.[188][189] The charred remains of the capital signified a humiliating defeat for Madison and America.[190] The British army next moved on Baltimore, but the U.S. repelled the British attack in the Battle of Baltimore, and the British army departed from the Chesapeake region in September.[191] That same month, U.S. forces repelled a British invasion from Canada with a victory at the Battle of Plattsburgh.[192] The British public began to turn against the war in North America, and British leaders began to look for a quick exit from the conflict.[193]

In January 1815, Jackson's troops defeated the British at the Battle of New Orleans.[194] Just over a month later, Madison learned that his negotiators had negotiated the Treaty of Ghent which ended the war. Madison quickly sent the treaty to the Senate, which ratified it on February 16, 1815.[195] Although the result of the war was inconclusive, the quick succession of events at the end of the war, including the burning of the capital, the Battle of New Orleans, and the Treaty of Ghent, made it appear as though American valor at New Orleans had forced the British to surrender. This view, while inaccurate, strongly contributed to bolstering Madison's reputation as president. Native Americans lost the most, including their land and independence.[196] Napoleon's defeat at the June 1815 Battle of Waterloo brought a final close to the Napoleonic Wars, an end to the hostile seizure of American shipping by British and French forces.[197].

The postwar period of Madison's second term saw the transition into the "Era of Good Feelings", with the Federalists experiencing further decline in influence.[198] During the war, delegates from the New England states held the Hartford Convention, where they asked for several amendments to the Constitution.[199] Though the Hartford Convention did not explicitly call for the secession of New England,[200] the Convention became an adverse political millstone around the Federalist Party as general American sentiment had moved towards a celebrated unity among the states in what they saw as a successful "second war of independence" from Britain.[201] Madison hastened the decline of the Federalists by adopting several programs he had previously opposed.[202]

Recognizing the difficulties of financing the war and the necessity of an institution to regulate the currency, Madison proposed the re-establishment of a national bank. He also called for increased spending on the army and the navy, a tariff designed to protect American goods from foreign competition, and a constitutional amendment authorizing the federal government to fund the construction of internal improvements such as roads and canals. His initiatives were opposed by strict constructionists such as John Randolph, who stated that Madison's proposals "out-Hamiltons Alexander Hamilton".[203] Responding to Madison's proposals, the 14th Congress compiled one of the most productive legislative records up to that point in history.[204] Congress granted the Second Bank of the United States a twenty-five-year charter[203] and passed the Tariff of 1816, which set high import duties for all goods that were produced outside the United States.[204] Madison approved federal spending on the Cumberland Road, which provided a link to the country's western lands;[205] but in his last act before leaving office, he blocked further federal spending on internal improvements by vetoing the Bonus Bill of 1817 arguing that it unduly exceeded the limits of the General Welfare Clause concerning such improvements.[206]

The Battle of Tippecanoe took place in the Northwest Territory on November 7, 1811.

In 1809 Harrison began to push for a treaty to open more land for white American settlement. The Miami, Wea, and Kickapoo were "vehemently" opposed to selling any more land around the Wabash River.[207] To motivate those groups to sell their land, Harrison decided, against the wishes of Madison, to first conclude a treaty with the tribes who were willing to sell and use those treaties to help influence those who held out. In September 1809, Harrison invited the Potawatomie, Delaware, Eel Rivers, and the Miami to a meeting in Fort Wayne. During the negotiations, Harrison promised large subsidies and direct payments to the tribes if they would cede the other lands under discussion.[208] The divisions among the Native American leaders were bitter and before leaving the discussions, Tecumseh informed Harrison that unless the terms of the negotiated treaty were largely nullified, he would seek an alliance with the British.[209] The situation continued to escalate, eventually leading to the outbreak of hostilities between Tecumseh's followers and American settlers later that year. Tensions continued to rise, leading to the Battle of Tippecanoe during a period sometimes called Tecumseh's War.[210][211]

Upon becoming president, Madison said the federal government's duty was to convert Native Americans by the "participation of the improvements of which the human mind and manners are susceptible in a civilized state".[160] On September 30, 1809, little more than six months into his first term, Madison agreed to the Treaty of Fort Wayne, negotiated and signed by Indiana Territory's Governor Harrison. The treaty began with "James Madison, President of the United States," on the first sentence of the first paragraph.[212] In the treaty, the American Indian tribes were compensated $5,200 ($109,122 in 2020) in goods and $500 in cash, with $250 in annual payments, in return for the cession of 3 million acres of land (approximately 12,140 square kilometers) with incentivized subsidies paid to individual tribes for exerting their influence over less cooperative tribes.[213][214] The treaty angered Shawnee leader Tecumseh, who said, "Sell a country! Why not sell the air, the clouds and the great sea, as well as the earth?"[215] Harrison responded that tribes were the owners of their land and could sell it to whomever they wished.[216]

Like Jefferson, Madison had a paternalistic attitude toward American Indians, encouraging the men to give up hunting and become farmers.[217] Madison believed the adoption of European-style agriculture would help Native Americans assimilate the values of British–U.S. civilization. As pioneers and settlers moved West into large tracts of Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, and Chickasaw territory, Madison ordered the U.S. Army to protect Native lands from intrusion by settlers. This was done to the chagrin of his military commander Andrew Jackson, who wanted Madison to ignore Indian pleas to stop the invasion of their lands.[218] Tensions continued to mount between the United States and Tecumseh over the 1809 Treaty of Fort Wayne, which ultimately led to Tecumseh's alliance with the British and the Battle of Tippecanoe, on November 7, 1811, in the Northwest Territory.[218][219] Tecumseh was defeated and Indians were pushed off their tribal lands, replaced entirely by white settlers.[218][219] In addition to the Battle of the Thames and the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, other wars with American Indians took place, including the Peoria War, and the Creek War. Negotiated by Jackson, in the aftermath of the Creek War, the Treaty of Fort Jackson of August 9, 1814, added 20 million acres of land to the United States (approximately 80,937 square kilometers) in Georgia and Alabama.[220]

Privately, Madison did not believe American Indians could be fully assimilated to the values of Euro-American culture. He believed that Native Americans may have been unwilling to make "the transition from the hunter, or even the herdsman state, to the agriculture".[215] Madison feared that Native Americans had too great an influence on the settlers they interacted with, who in his view were "irresistibly attracted by that complete liberty, that freedom from bonds, obligations, duties, that absence of care and anxiety which characterize the savage state". In March 1816, Madison's Secretary of War William Crawford advocated for the government to encourage intermarriages between Native Americans and whites as a way of assimilating the former. This prompted public outrage and exacerbated anti-Indigenous bigotry among white Americans, as seen in hostile letters sent to Madison, who remained publicly silent on the issue.[215]

In the 1816 presidential election, Madison and Jefferson both favored the candidacy of Secretary of State James Monroe, who defeated Secretary of War William H. Crawford in the party's congressional nominating caucus. As the Federalist Party continued to collapse, Monroe easily defeated Federalist candidate Rufus King in the 1816 election.[221] Madison left office as a popular president; former president Adams wrote that Madison had "acquired more glory, and established more union, than all his three predecessors, Washington, Adams, and Jefferson, put together".[222]

Madison's gravestone at Montpelier after his final years of failing health in the 1830s

Madison's health slowly deteriorated through the early-to-mid-1830s. By coincidence, the Fourth of July was the day of the year on which former presidents Jefferson, Adams, and Monroe had all died. In his final week, his doctors advised Madison to take stimulants which might prolong his life to July 4, 1836. However, Madison refused.[232][233] He died of congestive heart failure at Montpelier on the morning of June 28, 1836, at the age of 85.[234] According to one common account of his final moments, he was given his breakfast, which he tried eating but was unable to swallow. His favorite niece, who sat by to keep him company, asked him, "What is the matter, Uncle James?" Madison died immediately after he replied, "Nothing more than a change of mind, my dear."[235] He was buried in the family cemetery at Montpelier.[223] He was one of the last prominent members of the Revolutionary War generation to die.[224] His last will and testament left significant sums to the American Colonization Society, Princeton, and the University of Virginia, as well as $30,000 ($897,000 in 2021) to his wife, Dolley. Left with a smaller sum than Madison had intended, Dolley suffered financial troubles until her death in 1849.[236] In the 1840s Dolley sold Montpelier, its remaining slaves, and the furnishings to pay off outstanding debts. Paul Jennings, one of Madison's younger slaves, later recalled in his memoir,

In the last days of her life, before Congress purchased her husband's papers, she was in a state of absolute poverty, and I think sometimes suffered for the necessaries of life. While I was a servant to Mr. Webster, he often sent me to her with a market-basket full of provisions, and told me whenever I saw anything in the house that I thought she was in need of, to take it to her. I often did this, and occasionally gave her small sums from my own pocket, though I had years before bought my freedom of her.[237]

External video
Booknotes interview with Lance Banning on The Sacred Fire of Liberty: James Madison and the Founding of the Federal Republic, February 11, 1996, C-SPAN

During his first stint in Congress in the 1780s, Madison came to favor amending the Articles of Confederation to provide for a stronger central government.[238] In the 1790s, he led the opposition to Hamilton's centralizing policies and the Alien and Sedition Acts.[239] According to historian Ron Chernow, Madison's support of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions in the 1790s "was a breathtaking evolution for a man who had pleaded at the Constitutional Convention that the federal government should possess a veto over state laws".[240]

Although baptized as an Anglican and educated by Presbyterian clergymen,[241] young Madison was an avid reader of English deist tracts. [242] As an adult, Madison paid little attention to religious matters. Though most historians have found little indication of his religious leanings after he left college,[243] some scholars indicate he leaned toward deism.[244][245] Others maintain that Madison accepted Christian tenets and formed his outlook on life with a Christian world view.[246] Regardless of his own religious beliefs, Madison believed in religious liberty, and he advocated for Virginia's disestablishment of religious institutions sponsored by the state.[247] He also opposed the appointments of chaplains for Congress and the armed forces, arguing that the appointments produce religious exclusion as well as political disharmony.[248][249]

Madison grew up on a plantation that made use of slave labor and he viewed slavery as a necessary part of the Southern economy, though he was troubled by the instability of a society that depended on a large slave population.[250] Although Madison had supported a republican form of government, he believed that slavery had caused the South to become aristocratic. Madison believed that slaves were human property, while he opposed slavery intellectually.[251]

Madison initially opposed the 20-year delay in ending the foreign slave trade. However, he eventually accepted it as a necessary compromise to get the South to ratify the constitution.[252] He also proposed that apportionment in the House of Representatives be according to each state's free and slave population, eventually leading to the adoption of the Three-fifths Compromise.[253] Madison supported the extension of slavery into the West during the Missouri crisis of 1819–1821.[254] He believed that former slaves were unlikely to successfully integrate into Southern society. In the late 1780s, he became interested in the idea of African-Americans establishing colonies in Africa,[255] and he later served as the president of the American Colonization Society, which founded the settlement of Liberia for former slaves.[256]

Madison was referred to as a "garden-variety slaveholder" by historian Elizabeth Dowling Taylor. Madison abstained from excessive cruelty to slaves, to avoid criticism from peers, but worked his slaves from dawn to dusk, six days a week, allowing Sundays off for rest.[257] By 1801, Madison owned slightly more than 100 slaves at Montpelier. During the 1820s and 1830s, Madison was forced by debts to sell land and slaves. In 1836, at the time of Madison's death, he owned 36 taxable slaves.[258] Madison did not free any of his slaves, either during his lifetime or in his will.[254][251]

One of the Founding Fathers of the United States, Madison had a wide influence on upon the founding of the nation and upon the early development of American constitutional government and foreign policy. Historian J. C. A. Stagg writes that "in some ways—because he was on the winning side of every important issue facing the young nation from 1776 to 1816—Madison was the most successful and possibly the most influential of all the Founding Fathers."[259] Though he helped found a major political party and served as the fourth president, his legacy has largely been defined by his contributions to the Constitution; even in his own life he was hailed as the "Father of the Constitution".[260] Law professor Noah Feldman writes that Madison "invented and theorized the modern ideal of an expanded, federal constitution that combines local self-government with an overarching national order".[261] Feldman adds that Madison's "model of liberty-protecting constitutional government" is "the most influential American idea in global political history".[261][lower-alpha 8]

Many historians have criticized Madison's tenure as president.[264] In 1968, Henry Steele Commager and Richard B. Morris said the conventional view of Madison was of an "incapable President" who "mismanaged an unnecessary war".[265] A 2006 poll of historians ranked Madison's failure to prevent the War of 1812 as the sixth-worst mistake made by a sitting president.[266] Regarding Madison's consistency and adaptability of policy making during his many years of political acitivy, historian Gordon S. Wood says that Lance Banning, as in his Sacred Fire of Liberty (1995), is the "only present-day scholar to maintain that Madison did not change his views in the 1790s".[267] During and after the War of 1812, Madison came to support several policies he had opposed in the 1790s, including the national bank, a strong navy, and direct taxes.[268] Wood notes that many historians struggle to understand Madison, but Wood looks at him in the terms of Madison's own times—as a nationalist but one with a different conception of nationalism than that of the Federalists.[267] Gary Rosen uses other approaches to suggest Madison's consistency.[269] Historian Garry Wills wrote, "Madison's claim on our admiration does not rest on a perfect consistency, any more than it rests on his presidency. He has other virtues. ... As a framer and defender of the Constitution he had no peer. ... No man could do everything for the country—not even Washington. Madison did more than most, and did some things better than any. That was quite enough."[270]

Montpelier, the Madison family's plantation, has been designated a National Historic Landmark. The James Madison Memorial Building is part of the United States Library of Congress and serves as the official memorial to Madison.[271] In 1986, Congress created the James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation as part of the bicentennial celebration of the Constitution.[272] Other examples include Madison, Wisconsin and Madison County, Alabama[273][274] which were both named for Madison, as were Madison Square Garden, James Madison University, and the USS James Madison.[275][276][277][278]