Existing comment:
James Madison (1751-1836), by Joseph Wood, 1817. This portrait was done at the end of Madison's two terms as president. Even more important was the work that earned him the name "The Father of the Constitution." Once the federal government was established, however, Madison opposed George Washington's administration as too centralizing in domestic matters and not supportive enough of the French Revolution. He and Thomas Jefferson organized the opposition Republican (now Democratic) party. He was Jefferson's secretary of state 1801-09 before himself becoming president.
The Constitution Legacy:
George Mason's Virginia Declaration of Rights was the pattern for the federal Bill of Rights. James Madison is called "The Father of the Constitution." Thomas Jefferson's Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was the most sweeping call for freedom of conscience of any legislative enactment in history. John Marshall made the Supreme Court a co-equal branch of government. Eight of the first nine presidential terms were served by Virginians. Its leaders determined the character of the infant republic more than any other people. But not everything developed as the founding fathers had hoped.
The Revolution's egalitarian ideals had the largely unintended consequence of discrediting almost all ideas of dependence, hierarchy, and deference. Money became the principal determinant of status.
Thomas Jefferson's election as president in the "Revolution of 1800," overthrowing the conservative, centralizing Federalist party, seemed to augur well for what Virginians favored -- liberal, limited, and cheap government in a physically expanding nation. But by the time of Jefferson's death on July 4, 1826, raucous democracy was replacing genteel republicanism, public spiritedness was giving way to narrow individualism and materialism, and the Virginia Dynasty was about to be displaced by a succession of "log cabin" presidents.
Moreover, to the surprise and dismay of Thomas Jefferson, evangelical Christianity, not deism, swept the country and became the core culture of Virginia and the nation for the next century. |