James Madison: life, ideas and books

Life

James Madison was born in 1751 on the Belle Grove plantation in Virginia and was educated at the College of New Jersey, now Princeton. He helped write Virginia's first state constitution in 1776, served in the Virginia House of Delegates and sat in the Continental Congress. His "Virginia Plan" became the basis of discussion at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787.

After the Constitution was written, he wrote a share of The Federalist Papers with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay to urge ratification. He served in the U.S. House from 1789 to 1797, where he introduced the amendments that became the Bill of Rights. With Thomas Jefferson he led the Democratic-Republican Party, then served as Secretary of State from 1801 to 1809 and as fourth president from 1809 to 1817, a term that included the War of 1812. He died at Montpelier in 1836.

Ideas

Madison argued that a large, diverse republic can control the danger of faction, since many competing interests make it harder for any one majority to dominate. In Federalist No. 10 he treated the causes of faction as rooted in human nature, so government should manage its effects rather than try to remove them. In No. 51 he explained how separating powers and setting ambition against ambition keeps any branch from overreaching.

He defended religious freedom, co-drafting the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom with Jefferson and opposing state support for churches. He also came to favour a written bill of rights as a further barrier against the government.

Major works

• Federalist No. 10 and No. 51, on faction and the separation of powers.
• The Virginia Plan (1787).
• Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments (1785).
• The amendments that became the Bill of Rights (1789).

Why conservatives read him

Madison's constitutional design is the foundation for conservative arguments about limited, enumerated powers, federalism and the separation of powers. His writing on faction explains why the framers distrusted concentrated power in any hands, and his defence of enumerated rights supports modern debates over free speech, religious liberty and the limits of federal authority. Judges and scholars who read the Constitution by its original meaning look to his notes and essays constantly.