He became one of the leaders in the movement to ratify the Constitution and joined Alexander Hamilton and John Jay in writing The Federalist Papers, a series of pro-ratification essays that remain prominent among works of political science in American history.

Motivated by a desire to acquire land held by Britain, Spain, and Native Americans, and after diplomatic protests with a trade embargo failed to end British seizures of American-shipped goods, Madison led the United States into the War of 1812.

Historians regard Madison as one of the most significant Founding Fathers of the United States, and have generally ranked him as an above-average president, although they are critical of his endorsement of slavery and his leadership during the War of 1812.

[36] The new Anglican churches began incorporating more active forms of polity in their own self-government, collective decision-making, and self-supported financing; these measures would be consistent with the separation of religious and secular identities.

[b] During Madison's term in Congress from 1780 to 1783, the U.S. faced a difficult war against Great Britain, as well as runaway inflation, financial troubles, and a lack of cooperation between the different levels of government.

[49] Frustrated by the failure of the states to supply needed requisitions, Madison proposed to amend the Articles of Confederation to grant Congress the power to independently raise revenue through tariffs on imports.

As an advocate of westward expansion, he insisted that the new nation had to ensure its right to navigation on the Mississippi River and control of all lands east of it in the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War.

[60] Madison was also concerned about the lack of ability in Congress to capably create foreign policy, protect American trade, and foster the settlement of the lands between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River.

[64] He came to believe that the United States could improve upon past republican experiments by its size which geographically combined 13 colonies; with so many competing interests, Madison hoped to minimize the abuses of majority rule.

With the assent of prominent attendees such as Washington and Benjamin Franklin, the delegates agreed in a secret session that the abrogation of the Articles and the creation of a new constitution was a plausible option and began scheduling the process of debating its ratification in the individual states.

[103] His primary goals were to fulfill his 1789 campaign pledge and to prevent the calling of a second constitutional convention, but he also hoped to safeguard the rights and liberties of the people against broad actions of Congress and individual states.

[108] To prevent a permanent standing federal army, Madison proposed the Second Amendment, which gave state-regulated militia groups and private citizens, the "right to bear arms."

[111] Madison's proposal to apply parts of the Bill of Rights to the states was eliminated, as was his change to the Constitution's preamble which he thought would be enhanced by including a prefatory paragraph indicating that governmental power is vested by the people.

[140] Oral history has suggested Madison may have fathered a child with his enslaved half-sister, a cook named Coreen, but researchers were unable to gather the DNA evidence needed to determine the validity of the accusation.

[146][88] Madison and Jefferson believed that the Federalists were using the Quasi-War with France to justify the violation of constitutional rights by passing the Alien and Sedition Acts, and they increasingly came to view Adams as a monarchist.

Madison believed that the Alien and Sedition Acts formed a dangerous precedent, by giving the government the power to look past the natural rights of its people in the name of national security.

[155][156] An introspective individual, he received assistance from his wife,[137] relying deeply on her in dealing with the social pressures of being a public figure both in his own Cabinet appointment as Secretary of State and afterward.

[171] Madison believed that economic pressure could force the British to end their seizure of American shipped goods, and he and Jefferson convinced Congress to pass the Embargo Act of 1807, which banned all exports to foreign nations.

Aside from his planned nomination of Gallatin for Secretary of State, the remaining members of Madison's Cabinet were chosen merely to promote political harmony, and, according to historians Ketcham and Rutland, were largely unremarkable or incompetent.

[196] With Britain already engaged in the Napoleonic Wars, many Americans including Madison believed that the United States could easily capture Canada, using it as a bargaining chip for other disputes or simply retaining control of it.

Terrified of a Native American attack, drinking heavily, Hull quickly ordered a white tablecloth out a window and unconditionally surrendered Fort Detroit and his entire army to British Major-General Sir Isaac Brock.

[204][201] Commanding General Henry Dearborn, hampered by mutinous New England infantry, retreated to winter quarters near Albany, failing to destroy Montreal's vulnerable British supply lines.

He also called for a tariff designed to protect American goods from foreign competition, and a constitutional amendment authorizing the federal government to fund the construction of internal improvements such as roads and canals.

[248][249] The divisions among the Native American leaders were bitter and before leaving the discussions, Tecumseh informed Harrison that unless the terms of the negotiated treaty were largely nullified, he would seek an alliance with the British.

[253][254] Privately, Madison did not believe Native Americans could be fully assimilated to the values of Euro-American culture and may have been unwilling to make "the transition from the hunter, or even the herdsman state, to the agriculture".

Madison feared that Native Americans had too great an influence on the settlers they interacted with, who in his view was "irresistibly attracted by that complete liberty, that freedom from bonds, obligations, duties, that absence of care and anxiety which characterize the savage state".

[264] Historian Drew R. McCoy wrote: During the final six years of his life, amid a sea of personal [financial] troubles that were threatening to engulf him ... At times mental agitation issued in physical collapse.

[272] Madison's support of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions in the 1790s has been referred to as "a breathtaking evolution for a man who had pleaded at the Constitutional Convention that the federal government should possess a veto over state laws".

[312] Madison believed that this solution offered a gradual, long-term, but potentially feasible means of eradicating slavery in the United States,[313] but that peaceful co-existence between the two racial groups could eventually be achieved in the long run.

[319] Law professor Noah Feldman writes that Madison "invented and theorized the modern ideal of an expanded, federal constitution that combines local self-government with an overarching national order".