The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President

by Noah Feldman

IN ANY HISTORICAL ERA but his own, James Madison would not have been a successful politician, much less one of the greatest statesmen of the age. He hated public speaking and detested running for office. He loved reason, logic, and balance.

interest and destroy the basic constitutional framework. In the course of an epic, decade-long battle for the soul of the republic, Madison developed the practice of using the Constitution as a tool to criticize the opposing

After Jefferson’s retirement, Madison for the first time took the lead in the relationship.

Alexander Hamilton of New York. Still in his twenties, Hamilton had risen to prominence as aide-de-camp to General Washington and was now serving in Congress,

A glimpse of his unfamiliarity with the emotions of romantic love and loss—and his idealization of Jefferson—can be seen in an exchange of letters with Randolph concerning the death of Jefferson’s beloved wife, Martha Wayles Skelton, who died in September 1782, several months after giving birth to their sixth child. Randolph wrote to Madison that Martha’s death “has left our friend inconsolable.” He passed along a “circulating report” that Jefferson’s “grief [was] so violent” that he had been “swooning away, whenever he sees his children.”

in the spring of 1783, Madison, for the first time, pursued the possibility of marriage. And Jefferson, living with Madison at the time, played a major role in the courtship. Catherine Floyd, called Kitty, was the daughter of New York congressman and fellow boarder William Floyd.

Lafayette invited Madison to join him on a trip to Fort Stanwix (now renamed Fort Schuyler) for a major treaty negotiation between the six Iroquois nations and commissioners sent by Congress.3 They took a barge from New York City directly up the Hudson to Albany.

Madison drew several lessons from the trip. He believed he had gotten “a pretty thorough insight into” the character of Lafayette.

Madison was impressed by Lafayette’s position on slavery, telling Jefferson that the view “does him real honor as it is a proof of his humanity.”8 That one slave-owning Virginia planter could comment to another that it was honorable for a non-slave-owning foreigner to care about manumission says much about how Madison and Jefferson thought about slavery.9 The principle of abolition might be good, but the reality was not to be taken seriously. In the same vein, Madison could tell Edmund Randolph that he wished over the course of his career “to depend as little as possible on the labor of slaves,” without ever changing his lifestyle.10 Madison’s second lesson from his trip with Lafayette was that upstate New York was economically underdeveloped—and therefore a promising venue for land speculation.

If he lost to Monroe, Madison might have no role in the new government. He had designed the Constitution, but he lacked the specialized knowledge or experience for a cabinet position. Winning a seat in the House was the only way to avoid a massive setback in his political career.

Endorsing a bill of rights would show that Madison did not consider the Constitution perfect.

If Madison himself could draft the bill of rights in Congress, he could try to restrict the amendments to individual liberties without limiting the federal government’s power vis-à-vis the states.

Madison left Orange for New York on February 18, 1789, stopping along the way in Mount Vernon.53 The week Madison spent there with Washington, whose election as president was now under way, inaugurated a new period of political and personal closeness between them. Madison had relied on Washington to make the Philadelphia convention a reality.

Madison almost never spoke so negatively even about people who were his avowed enemies. He was impugning Adams’s character, asserting that Adams wanted the otherwise pointless vice presidency only so he would be next in line. Madison was even going so far as to insinuate that Adams might not wait until Washington stepped down to try to replace him. This attack on Adams was a rare instance of Madison’s jealousy. Adams was the one American with pretensions to be a serious constitutional philosopher.

On June 8, 1789, Madison introduced his bill of rights to Congress, urging the House to consider the amendments in detail.

Without Madison, the bill of rights would not have been enacted.120 He had delivered on his promise to his constituents.

Madison wanted the capital on the Potomac. Political and personal motives converged for him. His Virginia constituents, many of whom owned land to the west, strongly preferred the capital be close to Virginia to orient the nation toward the growing regions of Ohio, Kentucky, and the Mississippi. Madison had also invested in land on the Potomac River near Great Falls, Virginia.

After a month in the White House, the Madisons took a house on Pennsylvania Avenue—the only well-maintained street—four blocks from Jefferson. They eventually moved into a new brick house at 1333 F Street, even closer to the White House and next door to William Thornton, the architect of the Capitol, and his wife, Anna Maria. The Madisons would remain in the same house for the next seven years. Dolley

At remote Montpelier, Madison had conducted politics mostly in writing. In the new capital, politics was conducted face-to-face, often through social contact. That was not Madison’s natural inclination. It turned out to be Dolley’s greatest skill.

ON MARCH 4, 1809, James Madison became the fourth president of the United States. The inauguration took place in the south wing of the Capitol, where the House met.