Cool Ways to Draw the Name James

James Madison, Founding Father, builder of the Constitution, and fourth President of the United States, was born on March 16, 1751 at his mother's abode in Port Conway, Virginia, on the Rappahannock River near Fredericksburg. His parents—Nelly Conway Madison and James Madison, Sr.—couldn't have known that their eldest child would accept a major role in shaping the collection of British colonies they currently inhabited into a nation that would ultimately go a global superpower.

The Madisons lived in a relatively minor plantation house called Mount Pleasant in Orange County, Virginia during James Madison, Jr.'s immature childhood. In the early on 1760s, the plantation's enslaved labor force synthetic a brick Georgian construction a half-mile away, and the Madisons moved into this house, later renaming the estate "Montpelier."

A naturally curious and studious child, James Madison probable began his education at home under his mother. He was the oldest of 12 children, although only seven would alive to adulthood, and as the eldest son of a wealthy Virginia planter, Madison had a number of privileges that would allow him to hone his inquisitive listen. A distinguished Scottish teacher named Donald Robertson instructed young "Jemmy" between the ages of 11 and 16 at his school in King and Queen County. There, the eager pupil discovered a fascination for an array of subjects, including mathematics, geography, and both modern and classical languages, specially Latin. His ability to dive deeply into ancient philosophy congenital a foundation for the time to come statesman's influential ideas.

After some further preparatory study dorsum at Montpelier under the Reverend Thomas Martin, James Madison chose to pursue his higher education at the Higher of New Jersey, which would later on be known as Princeton University. Most prominent immature Virginians, such as his futurity mentor and friend Thomas Jefferson, attended the College of William and Mary. Simply the Virginia college'south humid, coastal clime was thought to be detrimental to Madison's health, so north he went.

In 1771, Madison graduated with high marks in classical languages, mathematics, rhetoric, geography, and philosophy. Not satisfied with merely those subjects, he became the college's get-go graduate student, studying Hebrew and political philosophy under university president John Witherspoon, after a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

A Political Crusader and Natural Diplomat

James Madison was unsure what to choose as a vocation when he came home to Montpelier. In hindsight, a transition into politics seemed inevitable for Madison, who took a keen involvement in the means governments functioned—particularly the struggle betwixt the American colonies and Great Britain. He started local, every bit a member of the Orange Canton Committee of Prophylactic in 1774, earlier being elected to the Virginia legislature in 1776.

There, he began forming ties with Jefferson. The two would piece of work closely in 1779, when Jefferson became Governor of Virginia and Madison served on the Governor's Council. Madison next served in the Continental Congress from 1780 to 1783, gaining a reputation for thoroughly considered arguments and for bringing multiple interests together in coalitions.

Past the time he moved back to Virginia to serve a second term in the legislature, Madison felt uneasy with the fashion that state governments were operating. He saw state legislatures as pandering besides much to the whims of their constituents, rather than taking a more holistic view. Equally a result of this "excessive republic," there was unrest in many corners of the new country.

Madison did much of his inquiry and writing at Montpelier.

The Father of the Constitution

With a largely powerless central authorities, thirteen state governments passing too many laws that were quickly irresolute and sometimes fifty-fifty unjust, information technology was starting to become clear that the Articles of Confederation, the agreement between the states created afterward the Revolution, but didn't provide plenty structure. The central government couldn't pay its debts, and it couldn't require the country to contribute their share to comply with federal laws. The great American Experiment was in danger of failing.

In grooming for the 1787 Constitutional Convention, Madison drafted a certificate known as the Virginia Plan, which provided the framework for the Constitution of the Us. Madison, then 36, spent the months leading up to the convention in Montpelier'southward library, studying many centuries of political philosophy and histories of past attempts at republican forms of government. His plan proposed a central government with three branches that would check and rest each other, keeping any 1 branch from wielding too much power. No such government had ever been created before, and Madison had to use all of his diplomatic skill to debate for his position. He also had to accept compromises to ensure that the Convention would produce a Constitution that all united states could accept.

The last Constitution—of which James Madison rejected being chosen the begetter, insisting until his expiry that it was the effect of the efforts of many—withal needed to be ratified. Madison, along with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, penned a serial of 85 paper manufactures in New York that addressed concerns and detailed how the Constitution would function, helping to sway the American people in favor of the new government. These "Federalist Papers" are still considered some of the well-nigh groundbreaking political philosophy of all time.

Madison returned to Virginia to join its ratifying convention, where he famously debated the great orator and Anti-Federalist Patrick Henry. Along with the other states, Virginia would go along to ratify the Constitution.

Author of the Bill of Rights

Initially, James Madison believed that a Bill of Rights was not only unnecessary, simply potentially harmful. If we enumerated some rights but non others, would information technology imply that others weren't included? Would a Bill of Rights carry whatever weight in the face of a despotic government anyway?

He ended upward coming around to the idea when information technology appeared that the Constitution would only be ratified with the promise of a Bill of Rights. So Madison compiled a list of xix proposals from the hundreds of suggestions that had come out of the states' ratification debates. A Congressional commission reworked those suggestions into 12 amendments, 10 of which would go on to be ratified by the states. Instead of becoming amendments worked into the body of the document equally Madison had idea, the amendments were added at the end of the Constitution as a dissever Nib of Rights.

Becoming the Madisons

In 1794, a young Quaker widow named Dolley Payne Todd (1768-1849) prepared to run across the esteemed statesman, James Madison at the request of her acquaintance Aaron Burr. She was 26 and had recently lost her husband and younger son in a yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia, where her family had moved from their plantation in Hanover County, Virginia 11 years prior.

Dolley and the 43-year-old Madison married later that year. Because Madison was not a Quaker, she was expelled from the Society of Friends after the two were wed at Harewood, the plantation of her sis'southward husband in what is now West Virginia. Madison would help raise Dolley's surviving son, John Payne Todd (known as Payne), and the family unit lived in Philadelphia until 1797 when they returned to Montpelier.

At his male parent'due south death in 1801, Madison inherited Montpelier and the 100-plus enslaved African Americans who came with it. Dolley Madison was in one case over again role of a slave-owning family unit, despite the Quaker convictions that inspired her begetter to emancipate his own slaves after the Revolution.

President James Madison — David Edwin later on Thomas Sully

The Madisons Become to Washington

Subsequently serving in the first four Congresses under the new Constitution, Madison intended to retire from politics altogether, merely when his friend and colleague Thomas Jefferson named him Secretary of State in 1801, the Madisons moved to Washington, D.C., the new nation's new capital metropolis. During Jefferson'due south assistants, Madison argued for America's aircraft rights as a neutral party in the war between France and Great United kingdom and assisted in technology the Louisiana Purchase.

When Jefferson'southward time in the White Firm was coming to a close, James Madison was the clear choice for his party, the Democratic-Republicans.

President and Mrs. Madison

James Madison easily defeated Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, the candidate of the Federalist party, which was chop-chop losing ground. Later the Madisons moved into the White Firm in 1809, both Dolley and James began working in their own unique ways to bring virtually compromises in a Congress that was divided in how it wanted to arroyo the ongoing European conflicts. James Madison mollified various political factions in his cabinet member selection, although it left him with a lackluster chiffonier that he gradually replaced with more competent individuals. Madison as well attempted to remainder the demands of Henry Clay's War Hawks, who wanted an immediate state of war with Great Britain.

Similarly, Dolley put all her powers of charm and affairs into turning the White Business firm into a identify of hospitality, where politicians and their spouses could come up together to have ceremonious and even pleasant conversations, despite being on opposite sides of an consequence. Guided past Dolley Madison's hand, the Executive Mansion accomplished a happy medium between the too-stiff protocols of Washington and Adams and the overly-coincidental and male-dominated gatherings of Jefferson. Visitors to the White Firm felt warmly welcomed in what would go synonymous with the American mode—a not-too-formal environment built on respect for each individual guest.

A depiction of the Executive Mansion after it was burned during the British invasion of the War of 1812.

A Nation at War

Ultimately, the disharmonize between Napoleon and Britain bled into American waters and onto American soil. Much of the country (and much of Congress) saw United kingdom's actions—impressing American sailors into service and arming Native Americans to set on settlers—as those of a hostile nation, and what was nicknamed the "2d State of war of Independence" commenced.

Madison quickly realized that the work that he and Jefferson had done to dismantle the national bank and oppose a standing ground forces had left the nation largely unprepared for a war. Segmented state militias and competing interests made for clumsy initial military efforts. In a motility that shocked America, British troops invaded Washington D.C. and burned the White House. Dolley Madison made the now legendary determination to order valuables to be taken to prophylactic before the British raided arrived—those valuables included the iconic Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington.

The tides turned, and battles on Lake Erie and at Baltimore's Fort McHenry leveled the playing field for the American armed forces. When the State of war of 1812 concluded in Feb 1815 with the Treaty of Ghent, the two governments considered it by and large a draw—no territory gained or lost, and no guarantee that American seamen's rights would exist respected. But to the American people, information technology was an important moment that showed the world they were non to be trifled with.

The Madisons at Montpelier

James Madison left Washington with a solid legacy. He made important inroads in re-establishing the national bank, a working taxation system, and a continuing armed forces. The counterbalanced central regime he'd outlined in the Constitution was outset to prove itself a success.

The Madisons finally retired to Montpelier in 1817 when James was 65 and Dolley was 49. An enthusiastic farmer, Madison applied the best practices he'd researched to raising wheat and tobacco, but weather condition, pests, and market prices conspired to proceed the plantation's profits low. Madison's finances were farther strained by the debts racked up by his stepson, John Payne Todd, a gambler and an alcoholic.

Throughout Madison'due south retirement years, he busied himself with editing his notes from the Constitutional Convention and other papers, every bit a souvenir to posterity and every bit a way to support Dolley after his death, through their publication. Madison worried about the question of slavery besides, engaging in multiple discussions with esteemed visitors about the possibility of colonizing freed slaves in Africa. While Madison may have considered freeing his own slaves, he decided to exit them to Dolley in his volition, with the expressed desire that she not sell them without their consent (a wish she ultimately failed to award).

The fourth President of the U.s. and the Father of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights died peacefully over his breakfast on June 28, 1836. He is buried in the family cemetery at Montpelier, where Dolley, his wife of 42 years, eventually joined him.

James Madison'southward Appreciation Day

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Source: http://www.montpelier.org/learn/the-life-of-james-madison

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