47 Fun Facts About James Madison

Which post did James Madison hold under Jefferson?

Secretary of State. Madison ran American diplomacy for all eight years of Jefferson's presidency, and the post became a stepping stone: his two successors as president both held it first too.

James Madison is popularly known by which nickname?

Father of the Constitution. Besides drafting the plan the convention started from, Madison sat at the front, missed no session and kept the fullest record of its secret debates.

What was the name of James Madison's plantation home in Virginia?

Montpelier. The duPont family bought it in 1901 and more than doubled the house; a restoration finished in 2008 removed their additions and returned it to the Madisons' day.

James Madison's proposal that became the basis for debate at the 1787 Constitutional Convention was called what?

Virginia Plan. Madison shaped it, but Governor Edmund Randolph was the one who presented it to the delegates, which is why it is also known as the Randolph Plan.

With which two men did James Madison write The Federalist Papers?

Alexander Hamilton and John Jay. Hamilton wrote most of the essays and Madison about a third; Jay managed only five, because illness cut his part short.

Under what pseudonym were The Federalist Papers published?

Hamilton recruited Madison after John Jay dropped out of the project.

The Federalist essays were written to win over which state?

New York. The essays ran there from October 1787, yet the state held out until July 1788, by which time ten others had ratified and the Constitution was already sure to take effect.

Federalist No. 10, James Madison's first essay in the series, warns of the danger posed by what?

Factions. Against the accepted view that a republic had to be small, Madison argued that a large one is safer, because no single faction can easily become a majority.

James Madison studied at the College of New Jersey; by what name is that university known today?

Princeton. Most young Virginians of his class went to William & Mary, but its humid lowland climate was thought a danger to Madison's fragile health, so he went north.

During James Madison's presidency, who wrote 'The Star-Spangled Banner' after watching the British bombard Fort McHenry?

Francis Scott Key. The lawyer watched the 1814 attack from a truce ship, where he had gone to win a captured friend's release, and set his poem to the tune of a London gentlemen's club song.

Which college president, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, taught James Madison?

John Witherspoon. Madison stayed on after graduating to study Hebrew and other subjects under the Scottish minister, who steeped his students in Enlightenment philosophy.

The capital of which U.S. state is named after James Madison?

Wisconsin. Land speculator James Doty named his planned city for the former president in 1836, then won it the capital by offering undecided legislators cheap lots there.

Dolley Madison is credited with saving a full-length portrait of whom before the British burned the White House?

George Washington. By her own account she had the frame broken so the Gilbert Stuart canvas could be carried off, though a servant who was there later wrote that others took it down.

Which Virginia measure written by Jefferson did Madison steer to passage in 1786?

Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. Jefferson's bill had sat unpassed for years; Madison first defeated a rival plan to fund Christian teachers by tax, then pushed it through while its author was in Paris.

Which general won the Battle of New Orleans in 1815, two weeks after the treaty ending Madison's war was signed?

Andrew Jackson. News of the peace signed in Europe had not yet crossed the Atlantic, and the lopsided victory made him a national hero and, fourteen years later, president.

Which former governor led the fight against the Constitution at Virginia's 1788 ratifying convention?

Patrick Henry. The 'liberty or death' orator dominated the speeches against it, yet Madison answered him point by point, promised a bill of rights and carried the vote.

Which future president did James Madison defeat in 1789 for a seat in the first Congress?

James Monroe. The rivals often rode from debate to debate together and stayed friends; Madison won after promising to back amendments protecting individual rights.

Whose 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights did James Madison draw on when he drafted the Bill of Rights?

George Mason. He had refused to sign the Constitution in 1787 and opposed it in Virginia, yet his own declaration became the model for the amendments Madison wrote two years later.

A Madison amendment from 1789, ratified in 1992, covers what?

Congressional pay. The 27th Amendment makes any change to Congress's salary wait for an election; a Texas student revived it in 1982 with a paper, graded C, arguing it could still be ratified.

In the Compromise of 1790, Madison accepted Hamilton's debt plan in exchange for what?

A federal capital on the Potomac. By Jefferson's account the deal was struck over a dinner he hosted for the two men, the scene behind 'The Room Where It Happens' in the musical Hamilton.

Which Philadelphia newspaper did James Madison and Thomas Jefferson help Philip Freneau found?

National Gazette. To lure Freneau, a college friend of Madison's, to Philadelphia, Jefferson gave him a government job as a translator, though French was his only foreign language.

Which 1794 agreement with Britain ended James Madison's friendship with President Washington?

Jay Treaty. Madison led the opposition to it in Congress, convinced it would ruin American economic independence, and the fight ended his long partnership with the president for good.

Dolley Madison was expelled from which religious group for marrying James Madison, an outsider to it?

The Quakers. Dolley was a 26-year-old widow who had lost her first husband and baby son to yellow fever the year before; marrying outside the faith cost her membership of the Society of Friends.

Who formally introduced James Madison to his future wife in 1794?

Aaron Burr. The future vice president knew the young widow from a Philadelphia boarding house where he had lodged, and arranged the meeting at the 43-year-old Madison's own request.

Whose debts and mismanagement helped ruin James Madison's finances in his retirement?

His stepson's. John Payne Todd, Dolley's son from her first marriage, ran up debts the Madisons kept paying, and with tobacco prices falling they left the plantation in deep financial trouble.

In his Virginia Resolutions of 1798, James Madison favoured which doctrine over Jefferson's nullification?

Interposition. A state could declare a federal law unconstitutional and protest, but not block it alone; Madison spent the rest of his life insisting his text gave no support to nullification.

James Madison's Report of 1800 attacked which laws of John Adams's presidency as unconstitutional?

The Alien and Sedition Acts. They made it a crime to criticise the president or the government, and newspaper owners who backed Jefferson were convicted under them.

The landmark case Marbury vs. Madison arose because Madison, on Jefferson's orders, refused to deliver what?

A judge's commission. John Adams had appointed William Marbury in his last days in office; the Court ruled he was owed the post but that it could not order delivery, and in doing so claimed the power to strike down laws.

Which 1807 act did Jefferson and Madison push through to pressure Britain and France?

Embargo Act. Its ban on all exports hurt the American economy far more than Europe's, and Congress replaced it in March 1809, days before Madison became president.

Whom did James Madison defeat in the 1808 presidential election?

Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. The Federalists counted on anger at the government's ban on foreign trade to carry the South Carolinian, yet Madison beat him by 122 electoral votes to 47.

Who administered the oath of office at James Madison's 1809 inauguration?

John Marshall. The chief justice swore Madison in while the outgoing Jefferson looked on, and the new president made a point of wearing a suit of American-made wool.

During James Madison's war with Britain, which naval commander reported 'We have met the enemy and they are ours'?

Oliver Hazard Perry. He sent the message after winning the Battle of Lake Erie in 1813, a victory that gave the Americans control of the lake and let them recover Detroit.

Which Speaker of the House led the 'War Hawks' who pressed James Madison toward war with Britain in 1812?

Henry Clay. The young Kentuckian got his war that June, and Madison later sent him to Europe to help negotiate the peace, counting on the leading hawk to win support for it at home.

Which general surrendered Fort Detroit without a fight early in James Madison's war?

William Hull. Fearing a massacre by Britain's Native allies, he gave up the fort and his whole army; a court-martial sentenced him to death, but Madison spared his life.

Which Erie Canal champion ran against James Madison in 1812 with Federalist backing?

DeWitt Clinton. He belonged to Madison's own party and was the nephew of his late vice president, yet ran with Federalist support and lost by 128 electoral votes to 89.

Which Massachusetts governor was James Madison's running mate in 1812?

Elbridge Gerry. Earlier that year his party had redrawn Massachusetts so that one district resembled a salamander, and an editor's nickname for it gave English the word 'gerrymander'.

At which 1814 battle were the Americans routed before the White House burned?

Battle of Bladensburg. Madison had ridden out to inspect the army beforehand; when it broke he fled to Virginia, and the British marched on to burn the Capitol and the White House.

Where did the Madisons live after the British burned the White House?

Octagon House. Its owner, the wealthy planter John Tayloe, offered it as a temporary executive mansion, and it was in its upstairs study that Madison signed the treaty ending the war.

Which peace agreement ending the War of 1812 did the Senate ratify in February 1815?

Treaty of Ghent. Signed on Christmas Eve 1814 in what is now Belgium, it simply restored the pre-war borders and settled none of the grievances the war had been fought over.

During the War of 1812, New England Federalists met at which gathering that ruined their party?

Hartford Convention. Its delegates stopped short of secession, but news of peace and of the victory at New Orleans came weeks later, and their complaints looked disloyal enough to finish the Federalists as a national party.

On his last day in office, James Madison vetoed a bill to fund what, saying it needed a constitutional amendment?

Roads and canals. Madison agreed the country needed them and had said so, but he vetoed John C. Calhoun's Bonus Bill because he believed only an amendment could give Congress that power.

James Madison chartered which institution in 1816, having once called its forerunner unconstitutional?

A national bank. Madison had found it hard to fight the War of 1812 without the loans and credit such a bank provided, so he approved a twenty-year charter for the Second Bank of the United States.

The 1809 Treaty of Fort Wayne, approved by James Madison, drove which Shawnee leader to build a confederacy against the United States?

Tecumseh. He called the sale illegitimate because the land belonged to all the tribes in common, warned settlers to stay off it, and sided with the British when Madison's war came.

After Jefferson's death in 1826, James Madison succeeded him as rector of which institution?

University of Virginia. Madison had helped his friend found it, and as rector he lent an elder statesman's standing to a young school short of money and troubled by student misconduct.

What were James Madison's reported last words?

'Nothing more than a change of mind, my dear.' A niece had asked what was the matter when he could not swallow his breakfast; his head dropped and he stopped breathing moments later.

Which senator bought the freedom of Paul Jennings, once James Madison's enslaved footman?

Daniel Webster. He paid $120 in 1847 and let Jennings work off the price; Jennings later wrote that he gave small sums from his own pocket to a destitute Dolley Madison.

After the War of 1812, James Madison sent which naval hero to force Algiers to stop seizing American ships?

Stephen Decatur. His squadron captured the Algerian flagship within weeks of sailing in 1815, and the treaty he then forced on Algiers ended the tribute the United States had been paying.