James Madison: The Great Pragmatist
PragerU
From the day he joined the Continental Congress in 1780 through his second term as the fourth President of the United States, James Madison was in the middle of everything. Many patriots contributed to the country’s success, but few, if any, did as much as James Madison. Historian Jay Cost explains.
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Script:
From the time he joined the Continental Congress in 1780 through his second term as the fourth President of the United States, James Madison was in the middle of… everything.
When it came to the Constitution, he understood it better than any single person—because nobody contributed more to its creation.
When it came to selling that document to the American people, he made the most persuasive arguments.
When ten amendments—the Bill of Rights—were needed to seal the deal, he wrote those, too.
Diminutive in stature—he was just over five feet tall—he was a giant in every other respect: as a writer, theorist, and, most importantly, political pragmatist. He was a deep thinker who got things done. And no one ever worked harder to get those things done.
James Madison was born in 1751 to a prosperous family in the Virginia Piedmont. Like his mentor, neighbor, and best friend Thomas Jefferson, he was well educated in the classics and spoke multiple languages. His home state sent him as a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1780, at the age of 29. There, he saw first-hand how bad a national government could be: slow, corrupt, self-interested.
He resolved to do something about it.
He wasn’t alone. George Washington and others pushed for a new social compact, a document that would truly bind the divergent interests of the various States—no easy feat. Their efforts paid off in May 1787 when a new Constitutional Convention was convened in Philadelphia.
Even though he was one of the younger delegates, Madison took a lead role, not because he was so ambitious, but because he was
