Madison was elected to the United States House of Representatives. Madison helped write the first laws for the United States. Madison also was the main writer of the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the Constitution.
Madison and Jefferson were good friends and helped create the Democratic-Republican Party who wanted a weak federal government.
Madison was selected by his political party to be the Democratic-Republican candidate for president in 1808. He won that election and the next election in 1812.[5]
The War of 1812 started while Madison was president. Madison still hoped for peace, but Congress wanted war so he gave in and the 61-year-old President approved a declaration of war against Britain on June 19, 1812. People who still wanted peace called it "Mr Madison's War". Madison and his family were forced to flee in 1814 when British forces seized control of Washington D.C and burned the White House, and many other buildings, to the ground. Dolley Madison, his wife, famously saved a portrait of George Washington from the fire.[6]
The war caused Madison to want a stronger government than he had before. While he originally was against a national bank, he realized that it was necessary and it was necessary for funding a war. When the charter of the national bank expired, Madison renewed it.[7]
Later life
Madison retired to Virginia after his second term. He died there from heart failure on June 28, 1836 at the age of 85.[8]
References
↑Spies-Gans, Marcelo Sanchez. "James Madison". Princeton & Slavery. Retrieved 2020-10-27. In February 1801 Madison Sr. died, leaving Montpelier and more than one hundred slaves to James Madison, as his eldest son. The following week, Thomas Jefferson became President of the United States and appointed Madison as his Secretary of State. Madison managed Montpelier from afar, yet took no concrete steps toward freeing his slaves or changing the plantation system. Upon becoming the fourth President of the United States in 1809, Madison brought slaves to serve him in the White House. One of these slaves was ten-year-old Paul Jennings, whose memoir about White House life—A Colored Man's Reminiscences of James Madison—was published in 1865.
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