We know that James Madison played a central role in the founding of our country.  Yet, he remains one of the more intriguing figures in American history.  Who was James Madison?
Was he defined by his heritage?  The family line began with Captain Isaac Maddyson, who arrived in Virginia only l6 years after the first English settlers founded Jamestown.  The family acquired land in the Spottsylvania forest which eventually became Orange County.  Madison's father inherited an interest in that land in 1732 and ultimately purchased the entire 4,675 acres.  The estate soon became known as Montpelier.  Although he was born in his grandmother's house near Fredericksburg on March l6, 1751, Madison was raised at Montpelier.  He was the eldest of l0 children and was called "Jemmy" so as not to be confused with his father, James,Sr.  Thus, Madison was reared as a member of the landed gentry, but he grew up to be more than just another country squire.

Was Madison a product of his education?  Like many boys in colonial Virginia, he spent a good deal of time with a tutor.  Because he was a sickly child, he grew to love reading and studying.  Unlike many young men in Virginia, he decided to go to Princeton College for his bachelors degree, which he received in l771.  At Princeton he concentrated on history, government, Hebrew, and ethics.  He also founded a literary and debating association with some of his friends, known as the American Whig Society.  It rivaled the Cliosophic Society, of which the young Aaron Burr was a member.  (Clio is the muse of historians for those of you taking notes.)  Although he never abandoned his studious habits, Madison did not in later life content himself with purely scholarly pursuits.

Was Madison a product of his religion?  Madison's father  was a vestryman of St. Thomas' parish in Orange and a lay delegate to the Episcopal Convention of 1776.  His father's nephew eventually became Bishop of Virginia, and James' mother was known to be a pious woman.  At Princeton, James was steeped in Presbyterianism, and witnessed the persecution of dissenters.  Perhaps that is why the deeply religious Madison developed a deep appreciation of  religious freedom and toleration of dissent.  For example, the only Amendment Madison offered at the Virginia Convention of 1776, which drafted a Declaration of Rights, concerned religious freedom.  It was the strongest amendment put forward on the subject and read in part:

[A]ll men are equally entitled to the full and
free exercise of [religion], according to the
dictates of conscience...."

Madison appears to have been the picture of a slight, frail, country squire of studious habits and deep religious convictions. If some doubted Madison's capabilities, Thomas Jefferson did not.  Jefferson was eight years older and eight inches taller than Madison.  Talk about living in the shadow of a man!  Despite these differences, the two became fast friends upon meeting in 1776 and remained friends until Jefferson's death fifty years later on July 4, l826.  Madison shared Jefferson's love of Virginia, farming, oenology, science, and even invention.  For example, Madison once came up with the idea of a walking stick with a microscope in it.  (This tells you something about his personality; most of us would prefer a walking stick with a telescope in it.)  Unsuited physically for military service, madison spent the duration of the Revolutionary War and, in fact, his entire career in the service of government.  He lost his seat in the House of Burgesses in 1777 because he refused to supply the voters with rum punch, a pre-election strategy used by his opponent.  Madison was compensated in the same year by being selected to serve as a member of the Priv Council which advised the Governor.  He was elected to the Continental Congress by the General Assembly of Virginia.  He took his seat on March 20, 1780, and served with distinction.  Madison noted that the government wasn't working very well.  It was becoming difficult to finance the war and the disposition of western territories was causing strains among the states.  Madison came to believe that a stronger union was essential.  He apparently felt that he was in need of a personal union as well because he proposed to the lovely Catherine Floyd in 1783.

Miss Floyd jilted Madison, sending him notice of her rejection in a chunk of rye bread.  No one has discovered just why she chose this edible envelope to package the bad news.  Perhaps she was trying to tell Madison that he needed to put on weight, or that half a loaf was better than none.  Maybe she meant to imply that she had another loaf in the oven.  Maybe she couldn't spell any better than I can and had a wry sense of humor.  Devastated, Madison took up the study of law and probably never again ordered a pastrami on rye.

Throughout 1784, 85, and 86, Madison worked on a commission that was trying to settle questions relating to jurisdiction over the Potomac River, tariffs, taxes, and national defense.  He attended the Annapolis convention, which met in 1786 and endorsed New Jersey's call for a new Constitutional Convention to meet in Philadelphia in May of 1787.

All of the states except Rhode Island sent delegates to the new convention.  Following the lead of Alexander Hamilton and Madison, they quickly agreed to abandon the Articles of Confederation and write a new constitution.  Madison played an active role in the debates that ensued, speaking on 71 of the 86 days that the Constitutional Convention was in session.  He made several prescient remarks during the debate, saying that the battle was not between large and small states, but between slave and free states.  He also put the final touches on the new constitution as a member of the Committee on Style.  Little wonder he is often referred to as the "Father of the Constitution."
Once the new constitution was approved and submitted to the states, Madison became one of its most ardent defenders, writing 29 of the 85 articles that became the The Federalist Papers.  His greatest challenge came in the Virginia Ratification Convention where he faced a strong group of anti-Federalists including George Mason, James Monroe, and the redoubtable Patrick Henry. Hearing that North Carolina had flatly rejected the proposed constitution and that New York was hanging in the balance, Henry took to the floor of the convention to attack the document.  Fully one-quarter of the words recorded in the convention issued from Henry's mouth.

Madison held back until he secured an agreement that the new constitution would be debated article by article.  He knew that while the anti-Federalists might carry the transcendent issue of state sovereignty, they could not win the more pragmatic questions surrounding how the country would operate  without a stronger federal government.  Realizing that the anti-Federalists had no workable alternative to the new constitution, Madison went on the attack.  He took the floor 35 times in four days and opinion shifted in favor of the new constitution.   On June 26, l788 Madison's side triumphed over Henry's by a vote of 89 to 79.  Coincidentally, Hamilton engineered ratification in New York on the same day, and, with a majority of states having ratified, the Union of States was made.

Patrick Henry took the defeat bitterly and opposed the choice of Madison to represent Virginia in the new Senate.  However,  Madison, with even Henry voting for him, was appointed the temporary member of the House of Representatives from Orange county.  Madison should have realized that Henry was up to no good.  With Madison out of the state, Henry promoted James Monroe for the regular House seat from Orange county, and worked diligently on amendments to the Constitution.  Madison was skeptical of amendments to the Constitution proposed by those who had originally opposed ratification.  The committee charged with drafting a bill of rights, headed by Hamilton, eventually received 200 proposals.

Madison returned from Congress in the winter of l789 to fight for his House seat and quickly learned that he was in trouble.  He faced a tough opponent in Monroe, who favored a strong bill of rights.  Madison rose to the challenge by debating Monroe often and then travelling on by horse in the dead of winter to seek more votes.  On one such trip he suffered a frostbitten nose, but eventually won the election by 366 votes on February 2, 1789.  Madison and Monroe became good friends during the campaign, much to Henry's dismay.

  The close election forced Madison to rethink his position on amending the Constitution.  He became a believer in the need for a bill of rights, particularly one that guaranteed free speech, free press and religious preference.  Madison recalled that in 1775, one of the most hostile acts taken by John Dunmore, Royal Governor of Virbinia, was to seize the printing press of John Holt on the grounds of sedition.  Now, thanks to Monroe's strong performance in debates with him and Jefferson's persuasion, Madison came to believe that a bill of rights was needed to protect such civil liberties as free speech, free press, and religious choice.

On June 8, 1789, Madison instituted proceedings in the House to consider constitutional amendments.  For his draft of an amendment on freedom of expression, he relied heavily on language that could be traced back to the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776, the only one which called for protection of both freedom of speech and freedom of press.  The draft read:

"The people shall not be deprived or abridged of
their right  to speak, to write, or to publish their
sentiments; and the freedom of press as one of the
great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable."

I will own that I never considered this provision
so essential to the Federal Constitution as to make
it improper to ratify it, until such an amendment
was added; at the same time, I always conceived,
that in a certain form, and to a certain extent,
such a provision was neither improper nor altogether
useless.

A motion was made in the Senate to qualify freedom of press by providing that it should be protected in as ample a manner as had been secured by common law.  This qualification was defeated, indicating that the Framers of the First Amendment intended a broader interpretation of the Amendment that that which would protect the press from prior restraint, but not from prosecution for seditious libel.  In support of broader protection, Madison said, "Some degree of abuse is inseparable from the proper use of everything; and in no instance is this more true than that of the press."  On September 4th, 1789, a new version of the amendment appeared, limiting it for the first time to Congress: "That Congress shall make no law...."  On September 9th, the Senate combined the religion clause, which also began "Congress shall make no law....", with the new version of what was to become the First Amendment.  On September l0th, the Senate sent 26 amendments to the House.  The House would not accept all of the Senate's changes, so representatives of the two bodies met in conference.  The House acceeded to many of the Senate's changes, but Madison, a House conferee, insisted on the inclusion of language prohibiting the government from establishing a religion.  Such a prohibition had not been included in the Senate version.

Madison prevailed, and the twelve amendments were sent to the states for ratification on September 25th, 1789.  The first two, concerning the selection and remuneration of congressmen, were defeated; the next ten were finally ratified on December l5, l791.  Thus, the third of the twelve amendments in the package, became the First, giving it even more prestige and influence than it had won in legislative debate.

The version of the First Amendment that Madison helped to shape reflected the fact that the colonial press had nurtured the debate that eventually erupted into a war of independence, that new state constitutions had consistently endorsed a broader interpretation of the term "free press" than that which prevailed in England or the colonies, and that such vigorous, partisan, and often vitriolic journalism was an essential check on the abuses of government.

Madison's leadership in the House did not go unnoticed.  He went on to become a leader, behind Jefferson, of the Democratic- Republican party.  His attacks on Hamilton were nearly as severe as those launched by Burr and Jefferson.  Madison helped establish The National Gazette, in which he and his colleagues lambasted the administration of John Adams.  Then Madison left the Congress, hoping to retire to Montpelier.  But in 1798, he was propelled back into public life by a new crisis, the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts.  He again found himself on the opposite side of an issue from Patrick Henry.  Madison strongly opposed the Acts by drafting the Virginia Resolutions with Jefferson and by lobbying for their repeal in Congress.  Henry also opposed the Acts, but argued that state nullification was not possible under the Constitution.  Having the last laugh, he argued that he had warned Jefferson and Madison in l788 that the Constitution should begin "We the States" instead of "We the people."  Now, having made their bed, Jefferson and Madison would have to sleep in it; their call for resistance by the states to the federal government on this issue was a clear violation of the intent of the Framers of the Constitution, Henry claimed.  Ignoring Henry, Madison ran for and was elected to the Virginia legislature in 1799 and then helped lead the Democratic-Republican party to victory in 1800. In l80l, Jefferson chose Madison to be his Secretary of State, a position that was becoming a stepping stone to the presidency.  Madison was clearly the heir apparent, and was elected President in 1808, leading the country into and through the war of l812 with England.

But perhaps none of Madison's accomplishments should be more admired than his marriage to Dorothea "Dolley" Payne Todd.  Dolley was born in North Carolina.  Her parents gave up their slaves when they became Quakers and then wisely moved to Philadelphia.  When Philadelphia was ravaged by yellow fever, Dolley--played by Ginger Rogers in the movie version--lost her first husband and one of her sons.  She returned to her mother's boarding house with her remaining child to help with the chores and live out her life as a widow.

As movie buffs know better than historians, Aaron Burr--played by David Niven--moved into Mrs. Payne's boarding house when the fever subsided and the Congress could return.  Madison--played to the appropriate height by Burgess Meredith--came by for a game of chess with Burr.  Dolley, who was dusting a spitoon nearby, caught James' eye.  However, we have it on the highest authority that he did NOT say, "Hello, Dolley."  Instead he said, "You're a Payne, aren't you?"
To which she replied, "And you're a little shrimp!"  Once this little misunderstanding was cleared up, their courtship proceeded.  Dolley married "the great little Madison", as Burr and others affectionately called him, in l794, after a six month engagement during which Madison jumped every time someone near him ordered a pastrami on rye.  Madison was 43 when he married the 26-year-old Dolley Payne Todd.

Dolley played an enormous role in her husband's life and remains the standard by which First Ladies are measured.  She hosted the First Inaugural Ball on March 4, 1809, wearing a yellow velvet dress, pearls, and a turban.  Dolley had her husband buy two beautiful coaches, maintain a stable of Kentucky thoroughbreds, and fill the wine cellar with the finest wines from France.  Washington Irving described Dolley as "a fine, portly buxom dame," and her husband as "a withered little apple-John."  But none of Washington Irving's stories graced the library of the First Family.
Irving thought he got the last laugh when in August of 1814 the British entered the city and burned its public buildings including the White House.  But because Dolley stayed in the presidential mansion until its valuables were safely stowed in wagons, including Gilbert Stuart's painting of George Washington, she became a national heroine.  Her husband fared less well.  While Dolley fled to Virginia, James visited the crumbling front lines of defense.  Realizing a disaster was imminent, he was finally convinced to retreat.  For most of August l5th he searched in vain for Dolley, who had been refused a room at a home in Virginia because the occupants thought her husband was a fool for getting the nation into a war.  Finally, they met at a small inn in the Virginia countryside and spent the next three days at various locations in Maryland before returning to the charred capital.  They moved into the Octagon House for the rest of Madison's term.

James Monroe, having served Madison well, including as temporary Secretary of War, became President in 18l7.  Madison retired to Montpelier where he served as a senior statesman and lived happily with his "magnificent Doll", (which happens to be the title of the film mentioned several paragraphs back, trivia lovers.)

Less magnificent was Dolley's son, Payne Todd.  Despite being lavished with love, money and political appointments, Payne never amounted to anything.  In fact, he became a drunk, nearly bankrupt Madison, and wound up in debtor's prison for a time.  Because of these financial troubles caused by Payne, Madison was never able to sell his slaves and hire freedmen as he had once promised Dolley.  The slaves were treated well by the man they called, "Mas'r Jimmy."  A survivor of these slaves, a Nancy Barbour of Orange, said at the turn of the century, that they all loved James and preferred taking their petitions to him rather than to his Quaker wife.
Madison worked closely with Jefferson, who lived only 30 miles away, on establishing the University of Virginia, and helped to maintain it after Jefferson's death in l826.  At that time, Madison was named rector.  He came out of retirement briefly at age 78 to direct the rewriting of the Virginia Constitution in 1829.

On June 28, 1836, Madison lay dying of rheumatism.  He had refused stimulants aimed at keeping him alive until July 4th.  Dolley sat beside the bed in anguish for endless hours.  Then rose to fetch some nourishment for her husband late in the day.  He was dead when she returned to his room.  He was the last signer of the Constitution, the final member of the Continental Congress and  the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1776 to die.  Dolley lived another 13 years, dying in Washington just after the 4th of July in 1849.  She was buried beside her husband at Monpelier.

I began this essay by wondering how one would define a person like Madison.  My hope is that in the space allowed, I've been able to convey something about the quality of his life and his commitment to freedom, particularly freedom of expression.  You can tell a good deal more about someone by what they say and do, by who hates them and loves them, and by the annecdotes in their lives, than by the cut of their clothes, their physical size, or the slant of their religion.  Madison gives strong support to that hypothesis.  This nation, and particularly the media community, owes a great deal to this little man who reached beyond his grasp and pulled all of us with him.