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35 unusual facts about James Madison


Adam Eckfeldt

On the death of the first chief coiner, Henry Voigt, in early 1814, Eckfeldt was appointed by President James Madison as successor.

Alexander Wolcott

Nominated by President James Madison to the late William Cushing's seat in February 1811, he was unpopular because, while a United States customs inspector, he had robustly enforced the Embargo and Non-Intercourse Acts.

Alfred Steinberg

His twelve books for the Lives to Remember Series included biographies of Herbert Hoover, James Madison, John Adams, Woodrow Wilson, Douglas MacArthur, the Kennedy brothers, Admiral Richard Byrd and Daniel Webster.

Article Four of the United States Constitution

A republican form of government is distinguished from a pure democracy, which the Founding Fathers wanted to avoid; as James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 10, "Hence it is that such pure democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."

Continental Congress

In addition to their slowness, the lack of coercive power in the Continental Congress was harshly criticized by James Madison when arguing for the need of a Federal Constitution.

Convention to propose amendments to the United States Constitution

After some debate, James Madison removed reference to the convention amendment process, giving the national legislature sole authority to propose amendments whenever it thought necessary or when two-thirds of the states applied to the national legislature.

Craig Wasson

In 1989, Wasson starred as James Madison in A More Perfect Union: America Becomes a Nation.

Crystal Dunn

Dunn had four NCAA Tournament goals, a game-winner against Jackson State, a goal against Notre Dame, and two goals in a 3–1 win over James Madison in NCAA second round; shot 30 percent to lead the team with 60 percent on goal rate.

Delina Filkins

During her lifetime, she lived through 27 U.S. presidencies, beginning with James Madison and ending with Calvin Coolidge.

District of Columbia statehood movement

Prior to the District's founding, James Madison argued (in Federalist No. 43) that the national capital needed to be distinct from the states in order to provide for its own maintenance and safety.

Drew R. McCoy

His two books cover a general study of political economy in Revolutionary and Early National America, and a partial biography of James Madison that, by focusing on his retirement, explores the transmission of republican values across generations in nineteenth-century America.

Due Process Clause

When the Bill of Rights was originally proposed by Congress in 1789 to the states, various substantive and procedural rights were "classed according to their affinity to each other" instead of being submitted to the states "as a single act to be adopted or rejected in the gross," as James Madison put it.

George Watterston

After war's end, Watterston was appointed by President James Madison as Librarian of Congress, the third person to hold the position and the first with that as his sole responsibility.

Giuseppe Ceracchi

Of this unrealizable project for a bombastic marble allegory James Madison drily remarked that the sculptor "was an enthusiastic worshipper of Liberty and Fame, and his whole soul was bent on securing the latter by rearing a monument to the former".

James H. Billington

Billington created the Library’s first national private-sector advisory group, the James Madison Council, whose members have supported the NDL Program, many other Library outreach programs, and acquisitions for the Library’s collections.

James Madison Freedom of Information Award

The award is intended to reflect the spirit of former U.S. statesman and president James Madison, traditionally regarded as the "Father of the United States Constitution" and primary author behind the George Mason-inspired United States Bill of Rights, and in particular the First Amendment.

John Blair, Jr.

But he was devoted to the idea of a permanent union of the newly independent states and loyally supported fellow Virginians James Madison and George Washington at the Constitutional Convention.

Jonathan Rauch

In terms of political philosophy, Rauch has referred to himself as "an admirer of James Madison and Edmund Burke".

Lee v. Weisman

He cited the writings of James Madison and pointed to the changing versions of the First Amendment that the First Congress considered as opposed to the version it eventually adopted.

Luis de Onís y González-Vara

The commitments of President James Madison with Napoleon I prevented it, despite their good words and personal messages of commitment to the cause of independence in Spain.

Madison County, Idaho

The newly established county was named for American president James Madison.

Necessary and Proper Clause

At this time James Madison concurred with Hamilton, arguing in Federalist No. 44 that without this clause, the constitution would be a "dead letter".

Privileges and Immunities Clause

James Madison discussed that provision of the Articles of Confederation in Federalist No. 42.

Robert Swartwout

Following the death of General Leonard Covington at the Battle of Chrysler's field, he was appointed Brigadier General and 9th Quartermaster General of the US Army on March 21, 1813, by President James Madison through Secretary of War John Armstrong.

Ron Prince

Prior to first stint at Virginia, Prince also served as an assistant coach at South Carolina State, James Madison and Cornell.

Samuel Rea

His paternal grandfather General John Rea was in the United States Congress from Bedford and Franklin, Pennsylvania, during the terms of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.

Supremacy Clause

In Federalist No. 44, James Madison similarly defends the Supremacy Clause as vital to the functioning of the nation.

Syng inkstand

It is thus both a work of art and an important artifact from American history, having been used by such prominent founding fathers as Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock, and James Madison.

The Independent Journal

The Independent is primarily remembered for being one of several newspapers to have published the Federalist Papers – a series of eighty-five articles and essays discussing and advocating the ratification of the United States Constitution, written by John Jay, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton.

Thomas Leiper

Leiper, as a Philadelphia tobacco merchant, bought his tobacco from Maryland and Virginia plantation owners including Jefferson and James Madison.

Title of Nobility Clause

James Madison, a member of the House of Representatives, would have none of it.

United States District Court for the District of Orleans

Hall's service was thereby terminated, but shortly thereafter, on May 27, 1812, he was successfully nominated by President James Madison to be a judge on the United States District Court for the District of Louisiana.

United States intervention in Chile

He had been sent by President James Madison in 1809 as a special agent to the South American Spanish colonies (a position he filled from 1810 to 1814) to investigate the prospects of the revolutionaries, in their struggle for independence from Spain.

United States Senate election in New York, 1813

The Democratic-Republican Party was split in two factions: the "Clintonians" (allies of Lieutenant Governor DeWitt Clinton), and the "Madisonians" (adversaries of Clinton who preferred the re-election of President James Madison).

Washington v. Texas

In her review of the history behind the Sixth Amendment, Kime argued that James Madison could have drafted a more comprehensive right to "call for evidence" (as existed in the Virginia Declaration of Rights) but failed to do so.


1811 in Canada

President James Madison, in his message to Congress, says: "We have seen the British Cabinet not only persist, in refusing satisfaction demanded for the wrongs we have already suffered, but it is extending to our own waters that blockade, which is become a virtual war against us, through a stoppage of our legitimate commerce."

David Parish

Sympathetic to the anti-war Federalist Party, he nevertheless brokered a $7.5 million loan to the cash-strapped Republican administration of James Madison in 1813 to continue prosecuting the war.

Democratic-Republican Party

In United States history, the Democratic-Republican Party, the Republican Party or the Jeffersonian Republicans was a political party organized by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in 1791-93, which opposed the Federalist Party and controlled the Presidency and Congress, and most states, from 1801 to 1825, during the First Party System.

Don Everhart

He designed and modeled John Quincy Adams, the sixth coin in the series, and modeled the fourth, a James Madison obverse.

Frederick Detrick

Although born in Frederick County, Maryland, where his family had lived for five generations, Detrick lived a portion of his childhood in Orange, Virginia, where his grandfather owned Montpelier, President James Madison’s former home.

James Madison Museum

The James Madison Museum located in Orange, Virginia is a museum dedicated to 4th President of the United States James Madison and his wife, Dolley Madison.

Jonathan Fisk

He was again elected to the 13th and 14th United States Congresses, holding office from March 4, 1813 to March 21, 1815, when he accepted a recess appointment by President James Madison as United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Madison Township, Scioto County, Ohio

Named after James Madison, the fourth President of the United States, it is one of twenty Madison Townships statewide.

Political faction

Similarly, in the tenth installment of the Federalist Papers, James Madison defines a faction as "a number of citizens, whether amounting to a minority or majority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community." In plain English this is a group that pursues self-interest at the expense of the common good.

Pseudonymity

A more modern example is all of the Federalist Papers, which were signed by Publius, a pseudonym representing the trio of James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay.

Samuel von Pufendorf

By way of these thinkers, Pufendorf was familiar to American political writers such as Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson.

Tertium quids

When Virginia Congressman John Randolph of Roanoke broke with Jefferson and James Madison in 1806, his Congressional faction was called "quids".

William Samuel Johnson

In Miracle at Philadelphia, Catherine Drinker Bowen called Johnson "the perfect man to preside over these four masters of argument and political strategy i.e. fellow committee members Alexander Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris, James Madison, and Rufus King...His presence on the committee must have been reassuring; the doctor's quiet manner disarmed." (Bowen, p. 235 of the 1986 edition)