Madison's Gift

By David O' Stewart

More towns and streets in America have been named after President James Madison than any other president, may be except Lincoln. James Madison is the father of constitution of America.

This book covers a huge gap in my understanding of what happened right after America declared itself independent. How did America write it's constitution? How did it adopt a state? How did it run a federal government?

While the book is NOT a story of constitution itself, it is partly that and beyond those initial years.

It follows an interesting narrative device thru Madison's life. It follows James Madison's collaborations with Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe and his wife Dolley Payne Madison.

The colonies declared their independence in 1776, and started writing their individual constitutions as the war started slowly waning away. The American constitution was written in 1787 and adopted in 1788.

The colonies got 11 years of experience in writing and living thru their state constitutions[1]. But James Madison realized that he didn't know enough about writing a national constitution. He spends the next few months trying to study Roman, Greek, English states and understand where they succeeded and failed. He presents his findings to the constitutional delegation.

He proposes a tripartite system of governance and extensive scheme of checks and balances between these co-equal branches of government. He collaborates with Alexander Hamilton to publish a series of letters and essays, the Federalist Papers, to sell the idea of the constitution, so individual states can ratify it. They succeed and constitution is in effect starting Mar 1789.

George Washington takes oath as the first president. Madison becomes his key advisor as the new country starts bootstrapping with the new constitution. He plays a key role in drafting bill of rights or first ten amendments of the constitution. Washington supports him in this endeavor. He also supports many federalist policies in the beginning, but slowly develops a rift with Washington. Washington's secretary of treasury, Hamilton advocates for a federal bank, to which both Madison and Jefferson oppose vociferously.

Hamilton wanted a strong federal government with a standing army and a national bank to stabilize the newly formed union[2]. Jefferson and Madison opposed it as they wanted power to remain with the states. Jefferson was privately contemplating the dissolution of the union for this principle. But Madison finally comes back on the standing army issue in 1814, when he is the president and the British burn down in the white house including his personal furniture.

His collaboration with Jefferson is the longest. He becomes the third president's close confidant even while Washington was still the president.They don't like John Adams, who is a federalist, and oppose him thoroughly. But otherwise, their rich correspondence goes into all kinds of subjects from political philosophy to architecture to agriculture to books etc.

Madison's abilities to find middle ground shine with not only Hamilton, but also Jefferson. When Jefferson argues that generations to come should not be held back by decisions of current generation. They should not banish future generations and therefore the constitution and the state should expire every other generation. Madison makes the reasoned argument that - it is a source of severe instability especially as the deadline arrives. He also argues that some, many decisions in fact ( like for example a new canal development) benefit the coming generations and therefore the current generations do get a say.

The part of the book that took me totally by surprise was the 1812 war with Britain, and how they burned down the white house. Madison had to flee much of the government into rural Virginia before the British arrived. Madison's wife had to rip off a portrait of Washington and flee the white house. Madison himself had to flee from place to place, so as not to be captured. But his calm demeanor and the eventual resolution of a shipping dispute with UK wins his popularity back. Monroe was his secretary of war.

The collaboration with his wife Dolley Payne Madison is more of how much of an important part she played in organizing his life both physically as well as socially. She is the light and mirth of the house. She was a leading party guest long after Madison died, and such were her social skills.

I found Madison's story enlightening, fascinating and inspiring. He managed to collaborate with giants, with different personalities and managed to be extremely effective for decades. He died on a July 4, like Adams and Jefferson.

[1] Coincidentally, India's constitutional makers also had about 11 years from 1935 Government of India act to constitution convention of 1946. BR Ambedkar was the only person at the convention who was educated in America, the home of constitutional writing, while the rest of them were educated in Britain, that doesn't have a written constitution.

[2] Another coincidence, Nehru and Patel took Hamilton's side amidst partition and huge violence that came along with it.