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The Federalist
Alexander Hamilton
Harvard University Press, 2009
Published serially in several New York papers between October 1787 and August 1788, the eighty-five Federalist Papers written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay under the pseudonym “Publius” advocated ratification of the proposed U.S. Constitution. Together these articles constitute one of the greatest American contributions to political thought. In his introductory essay, Cass R. Sunstein argues that in rejecting the claims of classical republicanism Publius embraces deliberative democracy, and reminds us that Publius’s arguments bear on current debates and “offer lessons for making war and making peace, and for domestic emergencies of many different kinds.” The John Harvard Library text reproduces that of the first book edition (1788), modernizing spelling and capitalization.
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Filibusters and Expansionists
Jeffersonian Manifest Destiny, 1800-1821
Frank L. Owsley
University of Alabama Press, 2004

Demonstrates the passionate interest the Jeffersonian presidents had in wresting land from less powerful foes and expanding Jefferson’s “empire of liberty”

The first two decades of the 19th century found many Americans eager to move away from the crowded eastern seaboard and into new areas where their goals of landownership might be realized. Such movement was encouraged by Presidents Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe—collectively known as the Jeffersonians—who believed that the country's destiny was to have total control over the entire North American continent. Migration patterns during this time changed the country considerably and included the roots of the slavery controversy that ultimately led to the Civil War. By the end of the period, although expansionists had not succeeded in moving into British Canada, they had obtained command of large areas from the Spanish South and Southwest, including acreage previously controlled by Native Americans.
 
Utilizing memoirs, diaries, biographies, newspapers, and vast amounts of both foreign and domestic correspondence, Frank Lawrence Owsley Jr. and Gene A. Smith reveal an insider’s view of the filibusters and expansionists, the colorful—if not sometimes nefarious—characters on the front line of the United States’s land grab. Owsley and Smith describe in detail the actions and characters involving both the successful and the unsuccessful efforts to expand the United States during this period—as well as the outspoken opposition to expansion, found primarily among the Federalists in the Northeast.
 

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James Madison
Liberty's Advocate
John P. Kaminski
Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2018
A Word Portrait of an American Founder.

America has had few political thinkers who have rivalled James Madison. The son of a wealthy planter, Madison was an unhealthy child and was beset by physical infirmities throughout his long life, and grew into a cerebral man. Madison left Virginia to attend the College of New Jersey, but returned to his native state after completing his studies. Though he aspired to be a college professor, Madison instead went into public service and became one of the most influential, guiding voices of the Founding Era. Madison’s Virginia Plan would be used as a blueprint for the Constitutional Convention, where the Articles of Confederation would be replaced with a new Constitution that bore traces of Madison’s influence throughout. 

Editor John Kaminski has gathered a remarkable collection of quotations by and about James Madison for the third installment of his Word Portraits of America’s Founders series. Through these words by and about Madison, we learn more about one of the country’s most influential Founding Fathers, who held a lifelong commitment to liberty and opposed oppression.
 
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James Madison
Philosopher, Founder, and Statesman
John R. Vile
Ohio University Press, 2008

James Madison: Philosopher, Founder, and Statesman presents fresh scholarship on the nation’s fourth president, who is often called both the father of the U.S. Constitution and the father of the Bill of Rights. These essays by historians and political scientists from the United States and abroad focus on six distinct aspects of Madison’s life and work: his personality and development as a statesman; his work at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and contributions to larger constitutional design; his advocacy for the adoption of the Bill of Rights; his controversial role as a party leader; his presidency; and his life after leaving office.

James Madison continues to be regarded as one of America’s great political theorists, a man who devoted his life to, and who found fulfillment in, public service. His philosophical contributions remain vital to any understanding of the modern American polity. This book will be of great interest to political scientists and theorists, as well as to historians of early American history and politics.

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James Madison
The Founding Father
Robert Allen Rutland
University of Missouri Press, 1997

Available for the first time in paperback, James Madison: The Founding Father is a lively portrait of the man who essentially fathered our constitutional guarantees of civil and religious liberty. Focusing on the role Madison played at the Continental Congress and in each stage of the formation of the American Republic, Robert Allen Rutland also covers Madison's relationship with his beloved wife, Dolley, his fifty-year friendship with Thomas Jefferson, and his years as a respected elder statesman after serving as secretary of state and fourth president of the United States.

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Madison’s Hand
Revising the Constitutional Convention
Mary Sarah Bilder
Harvard University Press, 2015

Winner of the Bancroft Prize
Winner of the James Bradford Best Biography Prize, Society for Historians of the Early American Republic
Finalist, Literary Award for Nonfiction, Library of Virginia
Finalist, George Washington Prize

James Madison’s Notes on the 1787 Constitutional Convention have acquired nearly unquestioned authority as the description of the U.S. Constitution’s creation. No document provides a more complete record of the deliberations in Philadelphia or depicts the Convention’s charismatic figures, crushing disappointments, and miraculous triumphs with such narrative force. But how reliable is this account?

“[A] superb study of the Constitutional Convention as selectively reflected in Madison’s voluminous notes on it…Scholars have been aware that Madison made revisions in the Notes but have not intensively explored them. Bilder has looked closely indeed at the Notes and at his revisions, and the result is this lucid, subtle book. It will be impossible to view Madison’s role at the convention and read his Notes in the same uncomplicated way again…An accessible and brilliant rethinking of a crucial moment in American history.”
—Robert K. Landers, Wall Street Journal

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Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787
James Madison
Ohio University Press, 1987

James Madison’s record of the Constitutional Convention traces day by day the debates held from May to September 1787 and presents the only complete picture we have of the strategy, interests, and ideas of the Founders at the convention itself.

In this indispensable primary document, Madison not only provides detailed insights into one of the great events of US history, but clearly sets forth his own position on such issues as the balance of powers, the separation of functions, and the general role of the federal government. More than in Federalist, which shows the carefully formalized conclusions of his political thought, we see in Debates his philosophy in action, evolving in daily tension with the viewpoints of the other delegates. It is for this reason that Debates is invaluable for placing in perspective the incomplete records of such well-known figures as Rufus King and Alexander Hamilton, and the constitutional plans of such men as Edmund Randolph and Charles Pinckney.

Madison’s contemporaries regarded him as the chief statesmen at the Philadelphia convention; in addition to this, his record outranks in importance all the other writings of the founders of the American republic. He is thus identified, as no other man is, with the making of the Constitution and the correct interpretation of the intentions of its drafters.

New to this edition of Debates is a thorough, scholarly index of some two thousand entries.

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The Papers of James Madison, Volume 5
1 August-31 December 1782
James Madison
University of Chicago Press, 1967
During the last five months of 1782, Madison continued to advocate close co-operation with France. To assure the durability of the Confederation, he endeavored to induce delinquent states to pay their financial quotas, and advocated adoption of a proposed impost amendment.
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The Papers of James Madison, Volume 6
1 January 1783-30 April 1783
James Madison
University of Chicago Press, 1969
During the first four months of 1783, when the United States was neither wholly at war nor wholly at peace, a cluster of difficult problems confronted James Madison and his fellow delegates in Congress. Faced with the interlocking issues of finance, demobilization, and foreign affairs, Congress held many contentious sessions early in the year. The sparseness of the official journal enhances the value of the notes on debates, recorded by Madison, for illuminating the discussions.
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The Papers of James Madison, Volume 7
3 May 1783-29 February 1784
James Madison
University of Chicago Press, 1971
During the first six of the ten months covered by this volume, Madison completed his initial period of service as a delegate from Virginia in the Congress of the Confederation. His correspondence with Thomas Jefferson and Edmund Randolph, as well as his other papers, reveal the mounting difficulties besetting him and his fellow nationalists who sought to preserve a union among the thirteen states. The major problems, which included demobilizing the discontented army, obtaining public revenue, funding the Confederation debt, pressing the British to evacuate their military posts, enforcing the preliminary articles of peace, creating a public domain in the West, locating a provisional or permanent capital of the Confederation, and negotiating commercial treaties with European powers, fostered sectionalism, factionalism, and an emphasis upon state sovereignty. As a prominent member of Congress, Madison sought legislative and constitutional remedies for this menacing divisiveness. To him the maintenence of the new nation embodied "the greatest trust ever confided to a political society," for it was "the last and fairest experiment in favor of the rights of human nature."

Early in December, after an absence of over three years, Madison returned to Montpelier, his father's estate. There during the winter of 1783-1784, he studied law, renewed old friendships, and canvassed the residents of Orange County for support of his candidacy for election to the House of Delegates of the Virginia General Assembly.

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