Madison, James

Basic Biographical Information

James Madison was the fourth president of the United States of America (1809–1817) and a pioneer of political theory at that time. He grew up in Virginia as the first of 11 children on his family’s plantation. He studied at the College of New Jersey, now called Princeton University. After a long and strong engagement in the politics, earning the title of “father of the Constitution” and after governing the United States for eight years, he died in 1836.

Major Accomplishments/Contributions

James Madison made various important contributions. Influenced by other Enlightenment writers like John Locke, Isaac Newton and Voltaire, he was instrumental in setting up the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and writing about a third of the Federalist Papers, a set of essays published in newspapers in 1787 and 1788 defending the Constitution from attack by its critics. Furthermore, James Madison helped frame the Bill of Rights when he was in the US House of...