James Madison

From Dixiepedia: The PC-Free Encyclopedia

James Madison (16 March 1751 – 28 June 1836) was born in Port Conway, Virginia. He was the eldest of twelve children and only seven of which lived to adulthood. His parents, Colonel James Madison, Sr. (27 March 1723 – 27 February 1801) and Eleanor Rose "Nellie" Conway (9 January 1731 – 11 February 1829), were slave owners and the prosperous owners of a tobacco plantation in Orange County, Virginia, where Madison spent most of his childhood years. He was raised Episcopalian.

Madison served as the fourth President of the United States from 1809 to 1817. He played a leading role in the creation of the United States Constitution in 1787 and, with Alexander Hamilton, was the chief expounder of its meaning in the Federalist Papers (1788). Working closely with Thomas Jefferson he created the Democratic-Republican party in the mid 1790s and built a system of grass roots political activism that was victorious in the election of 1800. As Jefferson's Secretary of State he handled the Louisiana Purchase, doubling the nation's size, and tried to avoid war with Britain and France. As president he led the war effort in the War of 1812, which began badly but ended on a note of triumphant nationalism.