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Copy of a painting of James Madison by Gilbert Stuart.
(National Archives)
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Militia Col. James Madison
Architect Of Constitution Was Ever Faithful To His Citizen-Soldier's Principles
By Bethanne Kelly Patrick
Military.com Contributing Writer
Although better known as the chief supporter and architect of the Constitution, James Madison was also one of the citizen soldiers of the American Revolution, and carried the ideals of his military training throughout his political career. Without Washington's imposing presence, Adams' learning, Jefferson's vision or Hamilton's brilliance, Madison was more faithful than any to the republican principles that sparked the colonial revolt against England.
Scion of the Virginia planter aristocracy and a Princeton graduate, Madison served briefly as a private in the Virginia Militia before being commissioned a colonel and commander of the Orange County regiment. He was responsible for the training and readiness of his troops, but his poor health and frail physique generally prevented him from active military service.
Instead, Madison turned his considerable intellect towards advocacy of the patriot cause. In 1776, as a member of the Virginia constitutional committee, he helped to draft a Bill of Rights that served as a model for the national version. It was during this time that Madison and Thomas Jefferson, both ardent Republicans, formed a lifelong bond. Both men supported religious tolerance and the separation of church and state. Although Madison depended all his life on income produced by a slave-supported plantation, he was against slavery and worked during his later years with the American Colonization Society to resettle freed slaves in Africa.
Madison brought these strong principles and a stronger work ethic to his representation of Virginia at the 1779 Continental Congress, where he began to exercise his ideas about the importance of the public interest. The youngest delegate, Madison was also the most prominent. His journal of the Constitutional Convention in 1786 remains the best single record of the event that resulted in that singular document.
Madison, who later served as both secretary of state and president, has been popularly known as "the Father of the Constitution," but recent historians have disputed his influence because "of 71 specific proposals that Madison moved … he was on the losing side 40 times." Yet unlike Hamilton, George Mason, and others, Madison did not "pick up his ball and go home when things didn't go his way," notes historian Bruce Kaufman. Madison stayed with the real work of the Convention, speaking more than any other delegate, coming up with compromises, and preparing more initiatives than anyone else. If Madison wasn't our Constitution's father, he was certainly its godfather -- and a man whose life was dedicated to the nation's service.
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