James Madison

James Madison, America’s fourth President (1809-1817), made a major contribution to the ratification of the Constitution by writing The Federalist Papers, along with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay. In later years, he was referred to as the “Father of the Constitution.”

Madison is best remembered for his critical role in the Constitutional Convention of 1787, where he presented the Virginia Plan to the assembled delegates in Philadelphia and oversaw the difficult process of negotiation and compromise that led to the drafting of the final Constitution.

Among his several reasons for opposing a bill of rights was that such documents were often just “parchment barriers” that overbearing majorities violated in the states regardless of whether the written protections for minority rights existed. As he wrote in Federalist Paper No.

“Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”

What was the main question James Madison thought about when he was writing the Constitution? “Should the United States have an army?” “How many states should be in the union?”

James Madison created the basic framework for the U.S. Constitution and helped write the Bill of Rights. He is therefore known as the Father of the Constitution. He served as the fourth U.S. president, and he signed a declaration of war against Great Britain, starting the War of 1812.

Abraham Lincoln has taken the highest ranking in each survey and George Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Theodore Roosevelt have always ranked in the top five while James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson and Franklin Pierce have been ranked at the bottom of all three surveys.

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John Adams and John Quincy Adams, 2nd and 6th Presidents of the United States.

Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty. Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.

John Quincy Adams, byname Old Man Eloquent, (born July 11, 1767, Braintree [now Quincy], Massachusetts [U.S.]—died February 23, 1848, Washington, D.C., U.S.), sixth president of the United States (1825–29) and eldest son of President John Adams.