James Madison: Father of the ConstitutionThe men who drafted America’s Constitution are commonly referred to as the nation’s “founders.” Of all of them, however, only James Madison is widely regarded as “the father of the Constitution.” Madison was elected president of the United States in 1808 and went on to serve two terms. Yet many Americans remember him less for his presidency than for what he accomplished before it: his efforts to strengthen the national government. It is this earlier work, rather than his time in office, that explains the title he is so often given. His involvement in constitution-making began early. In 1776, he was among the authors of the state constitution of his native Virginia. Later, in the aftermath of the Revolutionary War, the conflict through which the American colonists broke away from Britain, he put forward proposals for a more structured national government. At the heart of Madison’s vision was a government divided into three parts: an executive, a legislature, and an independent Supreme Court. These ideas went on to form the basis of the U.S. Constitution. Tom Howard, who has served as an educator at Madison’s home in southern Virginia, believes that Madison has never received quite the attention given to some of the other founding members. “He’s not somehow historically as well-known as other… founding statesmen,” Howard said. “But he’s certainly every bit as important… We are not even sure there would be a Constitution had it not been for James Madison.” According to Howard, Madison’s preparation for the Constitutional Convention was remarkably thorough, and he drew on his own library to carry it out. “He went up there and studied for months,” Howard explained, describing a routine of a light breakfast followed by a full day of study, broken only when Madison finally stopped to rest before going back to it the next day. Once the convention was under way in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Madison kept extraordinarily detailed notes. In Howard’s words, “He sat behind George Washington taking notes, and trying to determine how the debates were going in discussions that he could prepare for the next day, and how he would influence that.” In other words, the notes were not just a record; they were a tool for shaping the next day’s debate. Madison also recognized that the value of his notes extended well beyond his own needs. Aware that historians and others would one day want to know what had taken place at the meeting, he recorded the speeches and ideas of other delegates as well. Once the convention had produced a new constitution, the document still had to be ratified, that is, approved by a vote in the legislature of each state. Madison and other supporters of the proposed government eventually succeeded in persuading the states to do so. He was subsequently elected to the House of Representatives in the first Congress under the new government. Ultimately, though, it was his support for a strong national government and federal laws that earned him his place in history as “Father of the Constitution.”
