James Madison: The Father of the Constitution
Father of the Constitution: What was James Madison’s role?
James Madison is known as the Father of the Constitution. He understood the weaknesses of the central government under the Articles of Confederation and knew that a new system of government was needed.
James Madison
He was born in Virginia in 1751 and grew up on a beautiful southern plantation as the oldest of twelve children. He was educated at home before attending Princeton University, then known as the College of New Jersey.
In 1774, during the lead-up to the Revolutionary War, Madison took a seat on his local Committee of Safety, which oversaw the Orange County militia in Virginia. He served as a colonel in this militia, acting as his father’s second-in-command, until being elected to participate in the Fifth Virginia Convention, which produced Virginia’s first Constitution. He convinced the convention to change the Virginia Declaration of Rights to allow for religious freedom, which was one of his greatest achievements.
Madison was elected to the Virginia governor’s Council of State and became a close ally of Governor Thomas Jefferson. He was also elected to the Second Continental Congress, which he served on from 1780 to 1783 when the Revolutionary War ended in victory to secure American independence.
Following his role in the Second Continental Congress, Madison was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in 1784. In this role, Madison became increasingly worried about the States not being ‘united’ due to the weaknesses he saw in the current central government. These concerns led to him to organize the Constitutional Convention in an attempt to unite the states.
Although many attended the convention based on the belief that the purpose was to revise and strengthen the Articles of Confederation, it was Madison’s belief and intention that a new system of government was needed. Madison was the author of the Virginia Plan, which served as the basis for the work of the Constitutional Convention and, ultimately, the Constitution. He had studied the ancient democracies of the world to qualify him as an important voice at the Convention.
