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James Madison

2020-11-06T20:46:01Z

Samtheconservative:

{{Officeholder
|name=James Madison
|image=7648ruy6g.gif
|party=[[Republican (Jeffersonian)]]
|spouse=Dolley Todd
|religion=[[Episcopalianism]]
|offices=
{{Officeholder/president
|country=the United States
|number=4th
|terms=March 4, 1809 – March 4, 1817<ref>http://www.trivia-library.com/a/4th-us-president-james-madison.htm</ref>
|vp=[[George Clinton]]<br/>[[Elbridge Gerry]]
|preceded=[[Thomas Jefferson]]
|former=y
|succeeded=[[James Monroe]]
}}
{{Officeholder/secretary (cabinet)
|of=State
|state=United States
|number=5th
|deputy=n
|governor=
|president=[[Thomas Jefferson]]
|terms=May 2, 1801 – March 3, 1809
|preceded=[[John Marshall]]
|former=y
|succeeded=[[Robert Smith]]
}}
{{Officeholder/representative
|state=Virginia
|district=15th
|terms=March 4, 1793 – March 4, 1797
|preceded=Position created
|former=y
|succeeded=John Dawson
}}
{{Officeholder/representative
|state=Virginia
|district=5th
|terms=March 4, 1789 – March 4, 1793
|preceded=Position created
|former=y
|succeeded=George Hancock
}}
}}
'''James Madison''' (March 16, 1751 – June 28, 1836), an American statesman, political theorist, party leader and fourth president of the [[United States]] of America (1809–1817), was one of the most influential [[Founding Fathers]] of the United States. Misnamed the "Father of the [[United States Constitution|Constitution]]"—he had little influence on the document—Madison took the most thorough notes during the [[Constitutional Convention]] and wrote many of the [[Federalist Papers]] to promote its ratification, including its influential [[Federalist No. 10]]. Bookish and intellectual, Madison arrived to the Constitutional Convention many days early to pour over documents in preparation, and then developed the "Virginia Plan" for a new bicameral legislature based on population, which the delegates from other states then rejected after the convention began.

As a leader in the first Congresses, he drafted many basic laws and was responsible for the first ten amendments to the Constitution, and thus is also known as the "Father of the Bill of Rights." As a political theorist, Madison advanced the theory of [[republicanism]]. Madison's most distinctive belief was that the new republic needed checks and balances to limit the powers of special interests, which Madison called ''factions.''<ref>Robert Alan Dahl, "Madisonian Democracy," in Dahl, et al., eds. ''The Democracy Sourcebook'' (MIT Press, 2003), pp. 207-16.</ref> He believed very strongly that the new nation should fight against aristocracy and corruption (especially of British origin), and was deeply committed to creating mechanisms that would ensure [[republicanism]] in the United States.<ref>Banning, 1995; Kernell, 2003; Riemer, 1954.</ref>

As leader in the House of Representatives, Madison worked closely with President [[George Washington]] to organize the new federal government. Breaking with Treasury Secretary [[Alexander Hamilton]] in 1792, Madison and [[Thomas Jefferson]] organized the [[Jeffersonian Republicans]]. The new party opposed Hamilton's financial and foreign policies, especially the national bank and the [[Jay Treaty]]. In 1798 to protest the [[Alien and Sedition Laws]] Madison secretly coauthored, along with Thomas Jefferson, the [[Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions]] that called for states to block federal laws.

As Jefferson's secretary of state (1801-1809), Madison supervised the [[Louisiana Purchase]], doubling the nation's size, and sponsored the ill-fated [[Embargo of 1807]] to punish British and French violations of American rights. As president, he led the nation into the [[War of 1812]] against Britain in order to uphold American honor against British insults (especially the impressment of American sailors), to protect America's rights to trade with France, and to stop the British aid to Indians who were blocking expansion into the northwest Territory.

Madison had not seriously prepared for war and lacked a strategy or good generals. The war began poorly, as Americans suffered defeat after defeat by smaller forces, but ended on a high note in 1815, after which a new spirit of [[nationalism]] swept the country. During and after the war, Madison reversed many of his positions. By 1815, he supported the creation of the second national bank, a strong military, and a high tariff to protect the new factories opened during the war.

==Personal life==
James was the oldest of 12 children of James Madison, Sr., and Nelly Conway. The father, an Anglican vestryman, a justice of the peace, and Orange County's leading planter, was the owner of 4,000 acres and about 100 slaves. James attended a local academy and was home schooled, and went off to Princeton (College of New Jersey) in 1769. While at Princeton, Madison helped to found the [[American Whig Society]],<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=cmACDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA13 The Duel: The Parallel Lives of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr]</ref> a prestigious literary society which is still in existence today. Although small, frail and sickly, he was a brilliant student who finished the three-year course in two years and stayed on as Princeton's first graduate student. Studying under erudite president [[John Witherspoon]], a Presbyterian divine, Madison absorbed the classics, and the main books in Enlightenment thought.
[[File:Dolley.jpg|thumb|left]]

On September 14, 1794, Madison married [[Dolley Madison|Dolley Payne Todd]], who cut as attractive and vivacious a figure as he did a sickly and anti-social one. Dolley is largely credited with inventing the role of First Lady as political ally and adviser to the president. They had no children.

Both of them were close friends with former President Thomas Jefferson. They lived on a neighboring hilltop near Jefferson's hilltop estate, [[Monticello]], in Virginia.

==Political career==
Madison served in the Virginia state legislature (1776–79) and became known as a protégé of Jefferson, attaining prominence in state politics; he helped draft the [[Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom]]. Responding to demands from Baptists and Presbyterians, it disestablished the Anglican Church (Church of England), and disclaimed any power of state compulsion in religious matters. He persuaded Virginia to turn over its claims to northwestern territories (consisting of most of modern-day Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois) to the [[Continental Congress]].

As delegate to the [[Continental Congress]] (1780–83), Madison was considered a legislative workhorse and a master of parliamentary detail.

==Father of the Constitution==
Back in the Virginia state legislature, Madison welcomed peace, but soon grew alarmed at the fragility of the [[Articles of Confederation]], and especially at the divisiveness of state governments. He strongly advocated a new constitution to overcome this divisiveness, and was an important organizer of the 1786 [[Annapolis Convention]].<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=bDXjjuFNSTEC&pg=PA46 James Madison: A Son of Virginia and a Founder of the Nation]</ref> At the [[Constitutional Convention]] in Philadelphia in 1787, Madison's draft of the [[Virginia Plan]] and his revolutionary three-branch federal system became the basis for the final plan. Though Madison was a shy man, he was one of the more outspoken members of the Continental Congress. He envisioned a strong federal government that could overrule actions of the states when they were deemed mistaken. His [[Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787]] were the most detailed record, but he refused to allow them to be published until after his death, leaving commentators and judges puzzled for 50 years over what the authors intended by various provisions.<ref>Wood, 2006, pp. 163-64.</ref>

Other members of the Virginia delegation to the Convention were [[John Blair]], [[George Mason]], [[James McClurg]], [[Edmund Randolph]], [[George Washington]], and [[George Wythe]].

==The ''Federalist Papers''==
To aid the push for ratification, Madison joined [[Alexander Hamilton]] (and also [[John Jay]]) to write the ''[[The Federalist Papers]]''. These essays that immediately became the single most important interpretation of the Constitution, and remains so among jurists and scholars. Madison a third of them, most famously paper No. 10, in which he explained how a large country with many different interests and factions could support republican values better than a small country dominated by a few special interests. His interpretation was largely ignored at the time, but in the 20th century became a central part of the pluralist interpretation of American politics.<ref>Kramer, 1999</ref> Madison is often hailed as the "Father of the Constitution" for his role in its drafting and ratification. However, he protested the title as being "a credit to which I have no claim... [The Constitution] was not, like the fabled Goddess of Wisdom, the offspring of a single brain. It ought to be regarded as the work of many heads and many hands".<ref>Lance Banning, "James Madison: Federalist," note 1, [http://www.loc.gov/loc/madison/banning-paper.html].</ref>

Back in Virginia in 1788, Madison led the fight for ratification of the Constitution at the state's convention, oratorically dueling with [[Patrick Henry]] and other Anti-Federalists who tried to block the nationalistic document. The compromise reached was ratification together with the promise of a Bill of Rights that would be promptly added. All 13 states ratified the new Constitution and it took effect in 1789, as Washington was sworn in as president.

==Author of Bill of Rights ==
Patrick Henry persuaded the Virginia legislature not to elect Madison as one of their first Senators; but Madison was elected by the voters to the new House of Representatives and became a dominant leader from the First Congress (1789–90) through the Fourth Congress (1797–98).

Initially Madison had three main objections to a specific bill of rights:
*it was unnecessary, since it purported to protect against powers that the federal government had not been granted;
* it was dangerous, since enumeration of some rights might be taken to imply the absence of other rights; and
* at the state level, bills of rights had proven to be useless paper barriers against government powers.<ref>Wood, 2006b.</ref>

But the anti-Federalists in many states had demanded a bill of rights in exchange for their support for ratification. Over two hundred proposals were submitted from throughout the country. Madison ignored the proposals for structural change of the government, and synthesized the others into a short list of proposals for the protection of civil rights, such as free speech and habeas corpus. In June 1789 Madison offered a package of twelve proposed amendments to the House. Reversing his previous opposition he hounded his colleagues relentlessly to accept his proposed amendments.<ref>Wood, 2006b.</ref>

By December 1791, ten of Madison's proposed amendments were ratified and became the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights did not apply to the states until the passages of Fourteenth Amendment gave a federal guarantee to federal rights inside the states.

===First Amendment===
The concept of religious liberty was long known to be a Christian concept in the days of the Founders, and Madison directly credited [[Martin Luther]] as his inspiration in the crafting of that amendment. He wrote: (referencing an address of a reverend)
<blockquote>It is a pleasing and persuasive example of [[Piety|pious]] zeal, united with pure benevolence, and of cordial attachment to a particular creed, untinctured with sectarian illiberality. It illustrates the excellence of a system which, by a due distinction, to which the genius and courage of Luther led the way, between what is due to Caesar and what is due to God, best promotes the discharge of both obligations. The experience of the United States is a happy disproof of the error so long rooted in the unenlightened minds of well-meaning Christians, as well as in the corrupt hearts of persecuting usurpers, that without a legal incorporation of religious and civil polity, neither could be supported. A mutual independence is found most friendly to practical Religion, to social harmony, and to political prosperity.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=I6tLmjLqRfAC&pg=PA242 Letters and Other Writings of James Madison, 1816-1828], Letter to F. L. Schaeffer, Montpellier, December 3rd, 1821</ref></blockquote>

==Opposition to Hamilton==
The chief characteristic of Madison's time in Congress was his work to limit the power of the federal government. Madison never wanted a national government that took an active role and feared that Hamilton and Washington were creating a European type of government with a bureaucracy, a standing army, and a powerful independent executive.<ref>Wood, 2006a, p. 165.</ref>

When Britain and France went to war in 1793 the U.S. was caught in the middle. The 1778 treaty of alliance with France was still in effect, yet most of the new country's trade was with Britain. War with Britain seemed imminent in 1794, as the British seized hundreds of American ships that were trading with French colonies. Madison (in collaboration with Jefferson, who had returned to private life), believed that Britain was weak and America strong, and that a trade war with Britain, although it threatened retaliation by Britain, probably would succeed, and would allow Americans to assert their independence fully. Britain, he charged, "has bound us in commercial manacles, and very nearly defeated the object of our independence". Madison had no fear of British recriminations for "her interests can be wounded almost mortally, while ours are invulnerable". The British West Indies, he maintained, could not live without American foodstuffs, but Americans could easily do without British manufactures. This same faith led him to the conclusion "that it is in our power, in a very short time, to supply all the tonnage necessary for our own commerce".<ref>Paul A. Varg, ''Foreign Policies of the Founding Fathers'' (1963), p. 74.</ref> However, President Washington avoided a trade war and instead Hamilton and Jay secured friendly trade relations with Britain through the [[Jay Treaty]] of 1794. Madison tried and failed to defeat the treaty, and it became a central issue of the emerging [[First Party System]]. All across the country, voters divided for and against the Treaty and other key issues, and thus became Federalists or Republicans.

===Madison vs Hamilton===
Treasury Secretary [[Alexander Hamilton]] built a nationwide network of supporters that became the [[Federalist Party]], and promoted a strong central government with a national bank. Madison and Jefferson organized the Republican party in 1792. It opposed Hamilton's domestic and foreign policies and the Federalists overall as centralizers and pro-British elitists who would undermine republican values. Madison led the unsuccessful attempt to block Hamilton's proposed [[First Bank of the United States|Bank of the United States]], arguing the new Constitution did not explicitly allow the federal government to form a bank.<ref>As early as May 26, 1792, Hamilton complained, "Mr. Madison cooperating with Mr. Jefferson is at the head of a faction decidedly hostile to me and my administration. Hamilton, ''Writings'' (2001), p. 738. On May 5, 1792, Madison told Washington, "with respect to the spirit of party that was taking place ...I was sensible of its existence". ''Madison Letters'' (1865), 1:554.</ref>

===States rights===
Most historians argue that Madison changed radically from a nationally oriented ally of Hamilton in 1787–88 to a states-rights-oriented opponent of a strong national government by 1795. Madison started with opposing Hamilto; by 1793 he was opposing Washington as well. On most major issues Madison usually lost and Hamilton usually won, notably the National Bank, funding of state and national debts, and support of the [[Jay Treaty]]. (Madison did block the proposal for high tariffs.) Madison's politics remained closely aligned with Jefferson's until the experience of a weak national government during the [[War of 1812]] led Madison to appreciate the need for a stronger central government. He then began to support a national bank, a stronger navy and a standing army. However, other historians, led by Lance Banning and [[Gordon S. Wood]], see more continuity in Madison's views and do not see a sharp break in 1792.

==Secretary of State: 1801-1809==
The main challenge which faced the Jefferson Administration was navigating between the two great empires of Britain and France, which were almost constantly at war. The first great triumph was the [[Louisiana Purchase]] in 1803, made possible when [[Napoleon]] realized he could not defend that vast territory, and it was to France's advantage that Britain not seize it. Madison and President Jefferson reversed party policy to negotiate for the Purchase and then win Congressional approval. Madison tried to maintain neutrality between Britain and France, but at the same time insisted on the legal rights of the U.S. under international law. Neither London nor Paris showed much respect, however. Madison and Jefferson decided on an [[Embargo of 1807|embargo]] to punish Britain and France, forbidding Americans to trade with any foreign nation. The embargo failed as foreign policy, and instead caused massive hardships in the northeastern seaboard, which depended on foreign trade.

Jefferson and Madison looked to the [[yeoman]]—the independent farmer—for virtues that were founded on an agrarian economy like that of Virginia. They were determined to avoid war, because war meant large armies, permanent navies, military virtues in opposition to the yeoman, new taxes, and increases in executive power. The result they feared would weaken liberty and republicanism. But they were not isolationist. Instead Jefferson and Madison put their faith in the power of American commerce to achieve their objectives, though threats like the boycott. The boycotts failed and Madison took a poorly prepared nation to war in 1812.<ref>Smith 2004</ref>

The party's Congressional caucus chose presidential candidates, and Madison was selected in the [[U.S. presidential election, 1808|election of 1808]], easily defeating [[Charles Cotesworth Pinckney]], riding on the coattails of Jefferson's popularity. Congress repealed the failed embargo as Madison took office.

==Presidency 1809–1817==

===The Bank of the United States ===
The twenty year charter of the [[First Bank of the United States]] was scheduled to expire in 1811, the second year of Madison's administration. Madison failed to block the Bank in 1791, and waited for its charter to expire. Secretary of the Treasury Gallatin wanted the bank rechartered, and when the [[War of 1812]] broke out discovered how difficult it was to finance the war without the Bank. Gallatin's successor as Treasury Secretary [[Alexander J. Dallas]] proposed a replacement in 1814, but Madison vetoed the bill in 1815. By late 1815, however, Madison asked Congress for a new bank, which had strong support from the younger, nationalistic republicans such as [[John C. Calhoun]] and [[Henry Clay]], as well as Federalist [[Daniel Webster]]. Madison signed it into law in 1816 and appointed [[William Jones]] as its president.

===War of 1812===
British insults continued, especially the practice of using the Royal Navy to intercept unarmed American merchant ships and "[[impressment|impress]]" (conscript) all sailors who might be British subjects for service in the British navy. Madison's protests were ignored, so he helped stir up public opinion in the west and south for war. One argument was that an American invasion of Canada (that is, modern Ontario) would be easy and would provide a good bargaining chip. (Since 1940 American and Canadian historians have agreed that Americans did not desire to acquire Canadian lands, but to stop British aid to the hostile Indians.) Madison carefully prepared public opinion for what everyone at the time called "Mr. Madison's War", but failed to build up the army, navy, forts, and state militias. After he convinced Congress to declare war, Madison was re-elected President over [[DeWitt Clinton]] but by a smaller margin than in 1808. Historians in 2006 ranked Madison's failure to avoid war as the sixth worst presidential mistake ever made.<ref name = "CTV">[http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060218/presidential_errors_060218/20060218?hub=World CTV]</ref>

In the ensuing War of 1812, the British and their Indian allies won numerous victories, including the capture of Detroit after the American general there surrendered to a smaller force without a fight, and a British raid burned the White House. The British alliance with the western Indians proved a failure, as the [[Battle of Lake Erie]] in 1813 secured American control of the west, [[Tecumseh]] was killed, and his Indian coalition destroyed at the Battle of the Thames. A standoff was reached on the Canadian border, as Americans controlled Lake Erie and the British controlled Lake Ontario after a shipbuilding race. The British sent a major invasion force into New York but Americans sank the supporting fleet and the British retreated to Canada in 1814. At sea, the British blockaded the entire American coastline, cutting off both foreign trade and domestic trade between ports. Economic hardship was severe in New England, but entrepreneurs built factories that soon became the basis of the industrial revolution in America.

Madison faced formidable obstacles—a divided cabinet, a factious party, a recalcitrant Congress, obstructionist governors, and amazingly incompetent generals, together with militia who refused to fight outside their states. Most serious was lack of unified popular support. There were serious threats of disunion from New England, which engaged in massive smuggling to Canada and refused to provide financial support or soldiers.<ref>Stagg, 1983.</ref> However [[Andrew Jackson]] in the South and [[William Henry Harrison]] in the West destroyed the main Indian threats by 1813.

After the apparent defeat of [[Napoleon]] in 1814, both the British and Americans were exhausted, the causes of the war had been forgotten, the Indian issue was resolved, and it was time for peace. New England Federalists, however, set up a defeatist [[Hartford Convention]] that discussed secession. The [[Treaty of Ghent]] ended the war in 1815. There were no territorial gains on either side as both sides returned to ''[[status quo ante bellum]]'', that is, the previous boundaries. The [[Battle of New Orleans]], in which [[Andrew Jackson]] defeated the British regulars, was fought fifteen days after the treaty was signed but before the news of the signing reached New Orleans.

With peace finally established, the U.S. was swept by a sense of euphoria and national achievement in finally securing solid independence from Britain. In the U.S., the Federalist Party collapsed and eventually disappeared from politics, as an [[Era of Good Feeling]] emerged with a much lower level of political fear and vituperation, although political contention certainly continued.

===Postwar===
Although Madison had accepted the necessity of a Hamiltonian national bank, an effective taxation system based on tariffs, a standing professional army and a strong navy, he drew the line at internal improvements as advocated by his Treasury Secretary [[Albert Gallatin]]. In his last act before leaving office, Madison vetoed on states' rights grounds a bill for "internal improvements", including roads, bridges, and canals:

<blockquote>Having considered the bill ... I am constrained by the insuperable difficulty I feel in reconciling this bill with the Constitution of the United States.... The legislative powers vested in Congress are specified ... in the ... Constitution, and it does not appear that the power proposed to be exercised by the bill is among the enumerated powers.<ref name = "Tax">[http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/981.html Tax Foundation]</ref></blockquote>

Madison rejected the view of Congress that the General Welfare Clause justified the bill, stating:

<blockquote>Such a view of the Constitution would have the effect of giving to Congress a general power of legislation instead of the defined and limited one hitherto understood to belong to them, the terms "common defense and general welfare" embracing every object and act within the purview of a legislative trust.</blockquote>

Madison urged a variety of measures that he felt were "best executed under the national authority", including federal support for roads and canals that would "bind more closely together the various parts of our extended confederacy".

==Retirement==
When Madison left office in 1817, he retired to Montpelier, his tobacco plantation in Virginia; not far from Jefferson's [[Monticello]]. Madison was then 65 years old. Dolley, who thought they would finally have a chance to travel to Paris, was 49. But as with both Washington and Jefferson, Madison left the presidency a poorer man than when he entered, due to the steady financial collapse of his plantation. Some historians speculate that his mounting debt was one of the chief reasons why he refused to allow his notes on the Constitution Convention, or its official records which he possessed, to be published in his lifetime.<ref>"He knew the value of his notes, and wanted them to bring money to his estate for Dolley's use as his plantation failed -- he was hoping for one hundred thousand dollars from the sale of his papers, of which the notes were the gem." Wills, 2002, p. 163.</ref> Madison's financial troubles and deteriorating mental and physical health would continue to consume him. By the 1830s, troubled by debts that were threatening to bankrupt him, Madison's mental agitation led to physical collapse.<ref>McCoy, 1989, p.151.</ref>

In 1829, at the age of seventy-eight, Madison was chosen as a representative to the constitutional convention in Richmond for the revising of the Virginia state constitution; this was to be Madison's last appearance as a legislator and constitutional draftsman.

The issue of greatest importance at this convention was [[apportionment]]. The western districts of Virginia complained that they were under-represented because the state constitution apportioned voting districts by population, and the count included slaves even though slaves could not vote. Westerners had few slaves, while the Eastern planters had many, and thus the vote of a white easterner outweighed the vote of a white westerner.

Madison, who in his prime was known as "the Great Legislator", tried to effect a compromise, such as the 3/5 ratio for a slave then used by the U.S. Constitution, but to no avail. Eventually, the eastern planters prevailed. Slaves would continue to be counted toward their masters' districts. Madison was crushed at the failure of Virginians to resolve the issue more equably. "The Convention of 1829, we might say, pushed Madison steadily to the brink of self-delusion, if not despair. The dilemma of slavery undid him."<ref>Ibid., p. 252.</ref>

Although his health had now almost failed, he managed to produce several memoranda on political subjects, including an essay against the appointment of chaplains for Congress and the armed forces, on the grounds that this produced religious exclusion, but not political harmony.<ref>He was tempted to admit chaplains for the navy, which might well have no other opportunity for worship. The [http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_religions64.html text] of the memoranda</ref>

Madison lived on until 1836, increasingly ignored by the new leaders of the American polity. He was the last remaining signatory of the United States Constitution.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=HGkXMM-CXxMC&pg=PA87 Virginia's Historic Homes and Gardens]</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=MlNWU1e9ppUC&pg=PA181 The American Presidents, Washington to Tyler]</ref>

As historian Garry Wills wrote:
<blockquote>
Madison's claim on our admiration does not rest on a perfect consistency, any more than it rests on his presidency. He has other virtues.... As a framer and defender of the Constitution he had no peer.... The finest part of Madison's performance as president was his concern for the preserving of the Constitution.... No man could do everything for the country – not even Washington. Madison did more than most, and did some things better than any. That was quite enough.<ref>Wills, 2002, p. 164.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Views on national government==
Madison was the main drafter of the Constitution at the 1787 Philadelphia convention; his Notes remain the best source of the debates at this secret meeting. With Alexander Hamilton and one other he coauthored [[Federalist Papers]] of 1788, which helped convince New York to ratify the Constitution. The ''Federalist Papers'' remain to this day the most important commentary of the Constitution.

Like other nationalists Madison was disgusted with the weak national government of the 1780s—it was badly organized (with no president and no courts), and lacked the power to raise taxes. It would be unable to defend the new nation in a major war. Hamilton therefore was a strong proponent of powerful national government at this point. (He changed his mind in the 1790s.)

In the two greatest of all the Federalist Papers, numbers 10 and 51, Madison set forth his “republican remedy for the diseases most incident to republican government.” Those diseases, in his diagnosis, were the diseases attendant on factions. He feared, above all else, factions that might mobilize a plebeian majority capable of invading the rights, especially the property rights, of rich minorities. Since he saw no way to remove the causes of such factions, he set about to control their effects. The crux of that control was his brilliant realization that a large republic would forestall overbearing majorities more effectively than the small republics beloved of all previous democratic theorists. But the precondition of that realization was his distinction between two types of factions.
===Idea of a party system===
Hofstadter (1969) finds the “idea of a party system” in the pluralistic, antiparty attitudes in the young Republic, especially those of James Madison, primary author of the Constitution (1788) and cofounder of the Republican Party (1793). Americans did not respect English parties of the 18th century, which were shifting coalitions of politicians in Parliament and not based on the opinions of voters. Colonial American "pre-parties" practiced a vigorous, experience-yielding factionalism. However, deferential colonial politics (as in Virginia) elected men not for their proposals but for their reputation. Liberty and [[republicanism]], the basic values of the Founding Fathers, were to be protected by legislative checks since the checks of the political process were suspect. Ideally, two houses, rather than two parties, would check each other. In advocating the Constitution, antiparty thinkers such as Madison actually were establishing the major force in creating two great parties. Madison envisioned a pluralism among the parties rather than within them. He did not foresee parties as great, bland, enveloping coalitions. Because he feared the tyranny of a majority faction, Madison sought pluralism through a large republic and through majorities made up of weak, precarious coalitions. His view of pluralism owed much to his understanding of the liberties of religious dissent; parties were to resemble the multiplicity of religious sects, as in Virginia.<ref>Richard Hofstadter, ''The Idea of a Party System: The Rise of Legitimate Opposition in the United States, 1780-1840'' (1969).</ref>

==the Right to Bear Arms ==
In the [[Federalist Papers]] #46, he described how essential the right to bear arms (later embodied in the [[Second Amendment]]) is to overall freedom from tyranny:<ref>[http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/federal/fed46.htm Federalist No. 46] (emphasis added)</ref>

:Besides '''the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation''', the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, '''the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms'''. And it is not certain, that with this aid alone they would not be able to shake off their yokes. But were the people to possess the additional advantages of local governments chosen by themselves, who could collect the national will and direct the national force, and of officers appointed out of the militia, by these governments, and attached both to them and to the militia, it may be affirmed with the greatest assurance, that the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned in spite of the legions which surround it.

==The War of 1812==
Madison is considered to have been an inadequate President. He failed to resole diplomatically the continuing British seizure of American ships. Instead, he pushed for an unnecessary war, and the U.S. eventually invaded Canada (then still a British colony), in what became known as the War of 1812. That war saw the seizing of Detroit by Canada, and the burning of Washington, D.C. by the British. Madison's wife, Dolly, is famously remembered for saving a [[portraits|portrait]] of [[George Washington]] just before the British burned the [[White House]]. In [[hindsight]], the War of 1812 is viewed as a needless mistake, but at the time the [[Federalist Party]]'s opposition to the war (and to Madison's Republicans) led to the Federalists being viewed as "unpatriotic" and "anti-American," and the party disbanded soon after the next election year.

==Madison on Religion and Government==

Madison, along with his fellow Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson, were less tolerant of religion in government than other [[Founding Fathers]].<ref>Madison did NOT write the false quote:
:"Religion is the basis and Foundation of Government.... We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self government; upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God."</ref> Like Jefferson, Madison favored [[separation of church and state]].<ref>[http://www.helium.com/items/501599-the-case-for-separation-of-church-and-state The case for separation of church and state by Michelle Mueller]</ref>

Decades later, long after the [[Constitution]] was ratified, he wrote letters reflecting less of an embrace of religion. The letters may have been written with the opinions of the recipients in mind:

<blockquote>"The experience of the United States is a happy disproof of the error so long rooted in the unenlightened minds of well-meaning Christians, as well as in the corrupt hearts of persecuting usurpers, that without a legal incorporation of religious and civil polity, neither could be supported. A mutual independence is found most friendly to practical Religion, to social harmony, and to political prosperity."<ref>Letter to F.L. Schaeffer, Dec 3, 1821.</ref></blockquote>

<blockquote>"Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom? In the strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the U. S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion. The law appointing Chaplains establishes a religious worship for the national representatives, to be performed by Ministers of religion, elected by a majority of them; and these are to be paid out of the national taxes. Does not this involve the principle of a national establishment, applicable to a provision for a religious worship for the Constituent as well as of the representative Body, approved by the majority, and conducted by Ministers of religion paid by the entire nation?"<ref>Detached Memorandum, circa 1820.</ref></blockquote>

<blockquote>"In the papal system, Government and Religion are in a manner consolidated, and that is found to be the worst of Government." <ref>[[God and the Oval Office]] by John C. McCollister, W Publishing Group, 2002.</ref></blockquote>

:"The rights of persons and property, are the objects, for the protection of which Govt was instituted." <ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=3vh3OUHx-xIC&pg=PA193&dq=The+rights+of+persons+and+property,+are+the+objects,+for+the+protection+of+which+Govt+was+instituted.&ei=aNUIStyyII2oyATH5YWCDw James Madison and the Future of Limited Government‎ - Page 193]</ref>

==Quotes==
* "Mr. MADISON thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in men. The reason of duties did not hold, as slaves are not like merchandize, consumed, &c", Constitutional Convention, August 25

*"History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and it's issuance."

*"Crisis is the rallying cry of the tyrant."

*"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few."<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=rj1LAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA492 1829-1836, By James Madison]</ref>

*"When we are considering the advantages that may result from an easy mode of naturalization, we ought also to consider the cautions necessary to guard against abuses. It is no doubt very desirable that we should hold out as many inducements as possible for the worthy part of mankind to come and settle amongst us, and throw their fortunes into a common lot with ours. But why is this desirable? Not merely to swell the catalogue of people. No, sir, it is to increase the wealth and strength of the community; and those who acquire the rights of citizenship, without adding to the strength or wealth of the community are not the people we are in want of."<ref>[http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/print_documents/a1_8_4_citizenships8.html House of Representatives, Rule of Naturalization], February 3rd-4th, 1790</ref>

*"Experience is the oracle of truth; and where its responses are unequivocal, they ought to be conclusive and sacred." - Federalist 20

* "In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights."<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=w0ggAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA24 God and the Founders: Madison, Washington, and Jefferson]</ref>

* "Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a ''just'' government, which ''impartially'' secures to every man, whatever is his ''own''."<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=hCAjgs4mmQ4C&pg=PA330 James Madison: A Biography]</ref>

==Bibliography==
===Biographies===
* Banning, Lance. "James Madison" ''American National Biography Online'' (2000)
* Brant, Irving. "James Madison and His Times," ''American Historical Review.'' 57,4(July, 1952), 853–870.[http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8762%28195207%2957%3A4%3C853%3AJMAHT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-R online at JSTOR]
* Brant, Irving. ''James Madison'', 6 vols., (Bobbs-Merrill, 1941-1961). most detailed scholarly biography.
* Brant, Irving. ''The Fourth President; a Life of James Madison'' (Bobbs-Merrill, 1970). one-volume condensation of his series.
* Hunt, Gaillard. ''The Life of James Madison.'' 1902. [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=6010967 online edition] useful details but outdated interpretations
* Ketcham, Ralph. ''James Madison: A Biography'' (Macmillan, 1971). standard scholarly biography.
* Rakove, Jack. ''James Madison and the Creation of the American Republic'', 2nd ed., (Longman, 2002).
* Riemer, Neal. ''James Madison'' (Washington Square Press, 1968).
* Wills, Garry. ''James Madison'' (Times Books, 2002). short bio.

===Political history===
* Adams, Henry. ''History of the United States during the [First and Second] Administrations of James Madison'' (1890–91; Library of America, 1986).
** Wills, Garry. ''Henry Adams and the Making of America'' (Houghton Mifflin, 2005). a close reading of Adams.
* Banning, Lance. ''The Jeffersonian Persuasion: Evolution of a Party Ideology'' (1978)
* Banning, Lance. ''The Sacred Fire of Liberty: James Madison and the Founding of the Federal Republic'' (Cornell Univ. Press, 1995). [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=103677309 online edition]; [http://ets.umdl.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=acls;cc=acls;view=toc;idno=HEB00509.0001.001 online ACLS History e-Book]. Available only to subscribing institutions.
**Gibson, Alan. "Lance Banning's Interpretation Of James Madison: An Appreciation And Critique." ''Political Science Reviewer'' 2003 32: 269–317. Issn: 0091-3715 Fulltext: at Ebsco
* Brant, Irving. ''James Madison and American Nationalism''. (1968).
* Brown, Roger H. ''The Republic in Peril: 1812'' (1964), stresses intense hostility between partisans [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=100695976 online edition]
* Brown, Stuart Gerry. ''The First Republicans: Political Philosophy and Public Policy in the Party of Jefferson and Madison.'' (1954). [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=11814508 online edition]
* Elkins, Stanley M. and Eric McKitrick. ''The Age of Federalism'' (1995). most advanced analysis of the politics of the 1790s. [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&se=gglsc&d=5000304374 online edition]
* Koch, Adrienne. ''Jefferson and Madison: The Great Collaboration.'' (1950) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=8520360 online edition]
* Labunski, Richard. ''James Madison and the Struggle for a Bill of Rights.'' Oxford U. Pr., 2006. 337 pp.
* Leibiger, Stuart. ''Founding Friendship: George Washington, James Madison, and the Creation of the American Republic.'' U Press of Virginia, 1999. 284 pp. [http://www.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=13794971448315 online review]
* McCoy, Drew R. ''The Elusive Republic: Political Economy in Jeffersonian America'' (W.W. Norton, 1980). mostly economic issues.
** McCoy, ''The Last of the Fathers: James Madison and the Republican Legacy'' (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1989). JM after 1816.
* Miller, John C. ''The Federalist Era: 1789-1801'' (1960), survey of political history
* Peterson, Merrill D. ''Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation: A Biography'' (1975) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=82266123 online edition]
* Rutland, Robert A. ''The Presidency of James Madison'' (Univ. Press of Kansas, 1990). scholarly overview of his two terms.
** Rutland, ed. ''James Madison and the American Nation, 1751-1836: An Encyclopedia'' (Simon & Schuster, 1994). highly detailed coverage of Madison and the era
* Sharp, James Roger. ''American Politics in the Early Republic: The New Nation in Crisis'' (1993), political narrative of 1790s
* Skeen, Carl Edward. ''1816: America Rising'' (1993) popular history
* Smelser, Marshall. ''The Democratic Republic 1801-1815'' (1968) standard scholarly survey of politics and diplomacy.
* Stagg, John C.A., "James Madison and the 'Malcontents': The Political Origins of the War of 1812," ''William and Mary Quarterly'' 3rd ser. 33,4(Oct. 1976), 557–585. [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0043-5597%28197610%293%3A33%3A4%3C557%3AJMAT%22T%3E2.0.CO%3B2-X online].
** Stagg, "James Madison and the Coercion of Great Britain: Canada, the West Indies, and the War of 1812," in ''William and Mary Quarterly'' 3rd ser. 38,1(Jan., 1981), 3-34. [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0043-5597%28198101%293%3A38%3A1%3C3%3AJMATCO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-W online].
** Stagg, ''Mr. Madison's War: Politics, Diplomacy, and Warfare in the Early American Republic, 1783-1830'' (Princeton, 1983).
* Trees, Andrew S. ''The Founding Fathers and the Politics of Character.'' Princeton U. Press, 2004. 208 pp. compares Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson and Adams
* Wood, Gordon S., "Is There a 'James Madison Problem'?" in Wood, ''Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different'' (Penguin Press, 2006a), 141–72.
** Wood, "Without Him, No Bill of Rights," ''The New York Review of Books'' (November 30, 2006b).

===Political theory===
* Kernell, Samuel, ed. ''James Madison: the Theory and Practice of Republican Government'' (Stanford Univ. Press, 2003).
* Kramer, Larry D. "Madison's Audience." ''Harvard Law Review.'' 112#3 1999. pp 611+ [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=96849383 online edition]
* Matthews, Richard K., ''If Men Were Angels: James Madison and the Heartless Empire of Reason'' (Univ. Press of Kansas, 1995), political philosophy
* Morgan, Robert J. ''James Madison on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.'' Greenwood Press. 1988. [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=26239686 online edition]
* Muñoz, Vincent Phillip. "James Madison's Principle of Religious Liberty," ''American Political Science Review'' 97,1(2003), 17–32.
* Read, James H. ''Power versus Liberty: Madison, Hamilton, Wilson, and Jefferson'' (2000). political philosophy
* Riemer, Neal. "The Republicanism of James Madison," ''Political Science Quarterly,'' 69,1(1954), 45–64 in JSTOR.
** Riemer, ''James Madison : Creating the American Constitution'' (Congressional Quarterly, 1986).
* Rosen, Gary. ''American Compact: James Madison and the Problem of Founding'' (1999), political philosophy
* Samples, John, ed. ''James Madison and the Future of Limited Government.'' (Cato Institute, 2002), essays by libertarian and conservative scholars. [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=103202615 online edition]
* Sheehan, Colleen A. "The Politics of Public Opinion: James Madison's 'Notes on Government'," ''William and Mary Quarterly 3rd ser.'' 49,3(1992), 609–627. in JSTOR.
** Sheehan, "Madison and the French Enlightenment," ''William and Mary Quarterly 3rd ser.'' 59,4(Oct. 2002), 925–956. in JSTOR.
** Sheehan, "Madison v. Hamilton: The Battle Over Republicanism and the Role of Public Opinion," ''American Political Science Review'' 98,3(2004), 405–424. in JSTOR.
** Sheehan, "Madison Avenues," ''Claremont Review of Books'' (Spring 2004), [http://www.claremont.org/writings/crb/spring2004/sheehan.html online].
** Sheehan, "Public Opinion and the Formation of Civic Character in Madison's Republican Theory," ''Review of Politics'' 67,1(Winter 2005), 37–48.
* Smith, Robert W. ''Keeping the Republic: Ideology and Early American Diplomacy.'' Northern Illinois U. Press, 2004. 196 pp. [http://www.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=169311117567023 online review]

==Primary sources==
* James Madison, ''James Madison: Writings 1772-1836.'' (Library of America, 1999). over 900 pages of letters, speeches and reports. [ISBN 1-883011-66-3].
* Ketcham, Ralph, ed., Selected Writings of James Madison. ( Hackett, 2006. xxxii, 396 pp. isbn 978-0-87220-695-3.)
* James Madison, ''Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 Reported by James Madison'' (1987); [ISBN 0393304051] ([http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/debates/debcont.htm])
* James Madison, ''Letters & Other Writings Of James Madison Fourth President Of The United States'', 4 vols., (1865); called the ''Congress edition''. [https://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC00239122&id=pb2s8DG_2WUC&pg=RA1-PR11&lpg=RA1-PR11&dq=Letters+%26+Other+Writings+Of+James+Madison+Fourth+President online edition]
* William T. Hutchinson et al., eds., ''The Papers of James Madison'' (U. of Chicago Press, 1962-). the definitive multivolume edition. [http://www.virginia.edu/pjm/description1.htm 29 volumes have been published, with 16+ more volumes planned.]
* Gaillard Hunt, ed. ''The Writings of James Madison'', 9 vols., (1900-1910). [https://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC00752381&id=ri4fEe_y99kC&pg=RA3-PR21&lpg=RA3-PR21&dq=Writings+of+James+Madison:+comprising+his+public+papers online edition]
* Marvin Myers, ed. ''Mind of the Founder: Sources of the Political Thought of James Madison'' (1973) [ISBN 0-87451-201-8].
* James M. Smith, ed. ''The Republic of Letters: The Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, 1776-1826''. 3 vols., (1995).
* Jacob E. Cooke, ed. ''The Federalist'' (1961).

*[http://www.millercenter.virginia.edu/index.php/academic/americanpresident/madison Extensive essay on James Madison and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs]
*[http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quotes_by/james+madison Quotations by James Madison] at Liberty-Tree.ca
*[http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/collections/madison_papers/ The James Madison Papers, 1723-1836] from the Manuscript Division at the [[Library of Congress]], approximately 12,000 items captured in some 72,000 digital images.
*[http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/presiden/madispap.htm The Papers of James Madison] from the Avalon Project
*[http://religiousfreedom.lib.virginia.edu/sacred/madison_m&r_1785.html Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, 1785]
*[https://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/jm4.html Official White House page for James Madison]
*[http://www.jmu.edu/madison/center/main_pages/madison_archives/madison_archives.htm Madison Archives]
* {{Gutenberg author| id=James+Madison | name=James Madison}}
*[http://www.jamesmadisonmus.org/ James Madison Museum]
*[http://www.montpelier.org/ Montpelier-Home of James Madison]
* [http://www.loc.gov/loc/madison/hutson-paper.html ''James Madison and the Social Utility of Religion: Risks vs. Rewards'', James Hutson, Library of Congress]

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

==External links==
* [https://librivox.org/author/1973 Works by James Madison - text and free audio] - [[LibriVox]]
* [https://books.google.com/books?id=CT0-AAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover History of the Life and Times of James Madison], William Cabell Rives

{{USPresidents}}
{{Constitutional Convention}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Madison, James}}

[[Category:Founding Fathers]]
[[Category:Republicanism]]
[[Category:Early National U.S.]]
[[Category:United States Constitution]]
[[Category:Enlightenment]]
[[Category:War of 1812]]
[[Category:Religion and Politics]]
[[Category:Federalist Papers]]
[[Category: Classical Liberals]]
[[Category: Libertarianism]]
[[Category: Presidents of the United States]]
[[Category: United States Secretaries of State]]
[[Category: Patriots]]

Alben Barkley

2020-11-06T20:30:03Z

Samtheconservative:

{{President
|image=Alben barkley.jpg
|seq=35
|office=vice
|term_start=January 20, 1949
|term_end=January 20, 1953
|party=Democratic
|pres=Harry S. Truman
|previous=Harry S. Truman
|next=Richard Nixon
|birth_date=November 25, 1877
|birth_place=Graves County, Kentucky
|death_date=April 30, 1956
|death_place=Lexington, Virginia
|spouse=Jane Hadley Barkley
|spouse2=
|movie=
}}

'''Alben''' W. '''Barkley''' (1877-1956) was Vice President for [[Harry S. Truman]] from 1949 to 1953. He was elected Vice President on the Democratic ticket with Harry S. Truman in 1948, and tried but failed to win the party's presidential nomination in 1952. He served in the House and Senate, became Democratic Senate leader in the 1940s. He was a moderate liberal who supported most, but not all, the [[New Deal]] policies.

==Early life and career==
Barkley was born Willie Alben Barkley in a log cabin near Lowes, Graves County, Kentucky. His parents, John Wilson Barkley and Electra Eliza (Smith) Barkley, were tenant farmers who were very religious. He graduated from Marvin College, in Kentucky in 1897, where he excelled in speech and debate. He graduated Emory College, in Georgia in 1900, and then attended the University of Virginia Law School. It was during this time that he legally changed his name from "Willie Alben" to "Alben William."

Barkley was admitted to the bar in 1901 and practiced in Paducah, Kentucky. He was prosecuting attorney for McCracken County from 1905 to 1909 and judge of McCracken County Court from 1909 to 1913. He built a reputation as a progressive who sided with the farmers more than the townspeople. He supported prohibition and opposed gambling, two major issues of the day. His energetic, folksy campaigning and strong oratorical skills made him a power in the local Democratic party, as he defeated three opponents in the 1912 [[primary election]] and won the Congressional election.<ref>Libbey (2000)</ref>

==Congressional career==
===House of Representatives===
Barkley was elected to the Sixty-third and to the six succeeding Congresses (1913 - 1927) representing Kentucky's 1st district in the west. He gained statewide stature by leading the anti-gambling crusade, in cooperation with Protestant ministers. Barkley nearly secured the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 1923, and he built a base that carried the Democratic primary for Senate in 1926.

===U.S. Senator===
Barkley was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1926, and was reelected in 1932, 1938, and 1944. He served from 1927 until he became Vice President in 1949.

In 1937 he defeated [[Pat Harrison]] of Mississippi for Senate Majority Leader by 38-37, by stressing his loyalty to [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]], especially on the Court Packing proposal of 1937. His most critical election came in the 1938 primary when he defended the [[New Deal]] against conservative Gov. Happy Chandler. After a bitter campaign, Barkley won with 56% of the vote, drawing his support from farmers and workers, while the middle class voted against him.

He was Senate majority leader from 1937 to 1947 and minority leader from 1947 to 1949. He broke with Roosevelt in 1944 on tax issues. When Roosevelt vetoed a tax bill because the rates were too low, Barkley resigned his leadership position, and called for an over-ride. The veto was overridden and Barkley was unanimously returned as Majority Leader, clearly demonstrating that he, not the President, controlled the Senate.

==Vice President==
President [[Harry S. Truman]], an old Senate friend from a neighboring state, picked Barkley as his running mate in 1948. Pundits were stunned when Truman won. They were inaugurated January 20, 1949. Barkley was 71 years old, the oldest vice president to date. He handled ceremonial roles but was seldom consulted by Truman or his old Senate mates.

===1952 Presidential Campaign===
Truman gave up his reelection campaign in 1952 after losing the [[New Hampshire primary]], opening the way for Barkley, who wanted to run but was not able to build enough support from crucial factions in the party such as labor. He lost the Democratic nomination to [[Adlai Stevenson]].
==Return to the Senate==
He was again elected to the United States Senate and served from 1955 until his death the following year of a heart attack while giving a speech. He died moments after declaring, "I would rather be a servant in the House of the Lord than to sit in the seats of the mighty." He was interred in Mount Kenton Cemetery, on Lone Oak Road, near Paducah, Kentucky. In his honor, the award-winning debating society at Emory University was renamed the "Barkley Forum" in 1950. Lake Barkley, a man-made lake on the [[Cumberland River]] at the Kentucky-Tennessee border, and Barkley Dam at the same lake, are also named in his honor.

Barkley was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 1949.
Barkley is the only vice president to marry while in office; in 1953 he married a widow half his age.

==Bibliography==
===Primary sources===
* Alben Barkley, ''That Reminds Me'' (1954), autobiography
* Jane R. Barkley, ''I Married the Veep'' (1958), memoir

===Secondary sources===
* Davis, Polly. "Court Reform and Alben W. Barkley's Election as Majority Leader". ''Southern Quarterly'' 1976 15(1): 15-31.
* Davis, Polly Ann. "Alben W. Barkley's Public Career in 1944". ''Filson Club History Quarterly'' 1977 51(2): 143-157.
* Hixson, Walter L. "The 1938 Kentucky Senate Election: Alben W. Barkley, 'Happy' Chandler, and the New Deal". ''Register of the Kentucky Historical Society'' 1982 80(3): 309-329.
* Libbey, James K. ''Dear Alben: Mr. Barkley of Kentucky'' (1979), 110 page biography
* Libbey, James K. "Alben Barkley's Rise from Courthouse to Congress" ''Register of the Kentucky Historical Society'' (2000) 98(3): 261-278.
* Pietrusza, David ''1948: Harry Truman's Improbable Victory and the Year that Changed America'', New York: Union Square Press, 2011.
* Robinson, George W. "Alben Barkley and the 1944 Tax Veto". ''Register of the Kentucky Historical Society'' (1969) 67(3): 197-210.
* Sexton, Robert F. "The Crusade Against Pari-mutuel Gambling in Kentucky: a Study of Southern Progressivism in the 1920's" ''Filson Club History Quarterly'' 1976 50(1): 47-57.

==External links==
* [https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=2897 Alben Barkley's Gravesite]
* [http://www.mockconforum.com/blog Washington & Lee Mock Convention]
* [https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/alben_barkley.pdf Vice Presidents of the United States: Alben Barkley]

====Notes & References====

<references/>

{{DEFAULTSORT:Barkley, Alben}}
{{USVicePresidents}}
[[Category:Vice Presidents of the Virgin Islands|Barkley, Alben]]
[[Category:Democratic Party]]
[[Category:New Deal]]
[[Category:Moderates]]

Elbridge Gerry

2020-11-06T20:19:50Z

Samtheconservative: Added gerrymandering to the see also page

{{President
|image=Elbridge gerry.jpg
|office=vice
|seq=5
|term_start=March 4, 1813
|term_end=November 23, 1814
|party=Republican (Jeffersonian)
|pres=James Madison
|previous=George Clinton
|next=Daniel D. Tompkins
|birth_date=July 17, 1744
|birth_place=Marblehead, Massachusetts
|death_date=November 23, 1814
|death_place=Washington, D.C.
|spouse=Ann Thompson Gerry<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=PGP41K2qY2YC&pg=PA306 The Documentary History of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1789-1800: The justices on circuit, 1790-1794]</ref>
|religion=
}}
'''Elbridge Gerry''' (July 17, 1744 - November 23, 1814) was [[Vice president]] of the [[United States]] under [[James Madison]] from 1813 to 1814. He previously served as Governor of [[Massachusetts]], signed the [[Declaration of Independence]], and was a delegate to the [[Constitutional Convention]]. The phrase "[[gerrymander]]" was coined because a new district (in Massachusetts) had been shaped like a [[salamander]].<ref>[[Fandex]], Workman Publishing, 2002.</ref>

==Early life==
Elbridge Gerry was born at Marblehead, in the State of Massachusetts, July 17, 1744. He became a member of Harvard college before his fourteenth year, and on leaving the university, engaged in commercial pursuits at Marblehead, under the direction of his father. His inclination would have led him to the study of medicine; but great success attended his mercantile enterprise, and, in a few years, he found himself in the enjoyment of a competent fortune.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=1tcDAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA352 Lives of the Presidents of the United States: With Biographical Notices of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence; Sketches of the Most Remarkable Events in the History of the Country, from Its Discovery to the Present Time; and a General View of Its Present Condition]</ref>

==Career==
===State Representative===
In May, 1772, Mr. Gerry was chosen a representative to the General Court of Massachusetts, to which office he was re-elected the following year. During this year he was appointed one of the committee of correspondence and inquiry. In June, the celebrated letters of Governor Hutchinson to persons in England were laid before the House by Mr. Adams. In the debates on this disclosure, Mr. Gerry highly distinguished himself. He was also particularly active in the scenes of 1774. He was a member of the Provincial Congress which met at Concord, and powerfully contributed to the measures of opposition, which led to the Revolution. In 1775, the new Provincial Congress, of which he was one, assembled at Cambridge. In this body, he evinced a degree of patriotic intrepidity, which was surpassed by none.

A committee of Congress, among whom were Mr. Gerry, Colonel Orne, and Colonel Hancock, had been in session in the village of Menotomy, then part of the township of Cambridge. The latter gentleman, after the close of the session, had gone to Lexington. Mr. Gerry and Mr. Orne remained at the village; the other members of the committee had dispersed. Some officers of the royal army had passed through the villages just before dusk, and the circumstance so far attracted the attention of Mr. Gerry, that he dispatched an express to Colonel Hancock, who, with Samuel Adams, was at Lexington. Mr. Gerry and Colonel Orne retired to rest, without taking the least precaution against personal exposure, and they remained quietly in their beds, until the British advance were within view of the dwelling-house. It was a beautiful night, and the polished arms of the soldiers glittered in the moon-beams, as they moved on in silence. The front passed on. When the centre were opposite the house, occupied by the committee, an officer and file of men were detached by signal, and marched towards it. The inmates, for whom they were in search, found means to escape, half dressed, into an adjoining cornfield, where they remained concealed until the troops were withdrawn. Every part of the house was searched " for the members of the rebel Congress;" even the beds in which they had lain were examined. But their property, and, among other things, a valuable watch of Mr. Gerry's, which was under his pillow, were undisturbed.

On the 17th day of June, the memorable battle of Bunker Hill was fought. The Provincial Congress was at that time in session at Watertown. Before the battle, Doctor Joseph Warren, President of the Congress, who was the companion and roommate of Mr. Gerry, communicated to him his intention of mingling in the approaching contest. In the morning, in reply to the admonitions of his friend, he uttered the well known words, "Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori," which means "It is sweet and glorious to die for one's country". The sweetness and the glory, he but too truly experienced, and died one of the earliest victims to the cause of his country's freedom.
[[Image:John adams.gif|thumb|130px|right|John Adams]]
In 1775, Mr. Gerry proposed a law in the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, to encourage the fitting out of armed vessels, and to provide for the adjudication of prizes. This important measure was passed, and under its sanction, several of the enemy's vessels, with valuable cargoes, were captured.

Future President [[John Adams]] thought very highly of Gerry. He wrote: "The News you will learn from my very worthy Friend Gerry. He is obliged to take a Ride for his Health, as I shall be very soon, or have none. God grant he may recover it, for he is a Man of immense Worth. If every Man here was a Gerry, the Liberties of America would be safe against the Gates of Earth and Hell."<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=3hsNAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA260 Warren-Adams Letters: Being Chiefly a Correspondence Among John Adams, Samuel Adams, and James Warren ... 1743-1814, Volume 72], John Adams to James Warren, July 15, 1776</ref>

===Continental Congress and Constitutional Convention===
In 1776, Mr. Gerry was chosen a delegate to the [[Second Continental Congress]], in which body he shortly after took his seat. His services in this capacity were numerous and important. Having married in New York, he returned to his native State, and fixed his residence at Cambridge, a few miles from Boston. During his time in the Continental Congress, Gerry became associated with the [[Conway Cabal]], though nothing came of it.

In 1787, Mr. Gerry was chosen a delegate to the Convention which assembled at Philadelphia, to revise the [[Articles of Confederation]]. To him there appeared strong objections to the Federal Constitution, the most notable of which was the lack of a [[Bill of Rights]]. Because of this, he declined to sign the Constitution.

But after that Constitution had gone into effect, and he was chosen a representative to Congress, he cheerfully united in its support, since it had received the sanction of the country. Other members of the Massachusetts delegation to the Convention were [[Nathaniel Gorham]], [[Rufus King]], and [[Caleb Strong]].

===Diplomat===
In 1797, Mr. Gerry was appointed to accompany [[General Pinckney]] and Mr. Marshall on a special mission to France. On their arrival in Paris, the tools of the government made the extraordinary demand of a large sum of money, as the condition of any negotiation. This being refused, the ridiculous attempt was made by the Directory, to excite their fears for themselves and their country. In the spring of 1798, two of the envoys, Messrs. Pinckney and Marshall, were ordered to quit the territories of France, while Mr. Gerry was invited to remain, and resume the negotiation which had been suspended. He accepted the invitation to remain, but resolutely refused to resume the negotiation.

====XYZ Affair====
{{main|XYZ Affair}}
His object in remaining was to prevent an immediate rupture with France, which, it was feared, would result from his departure. His continuance seems to have eventuated in the good of his country. "He finally saved the peace of the nation," said the late President Adams, "for he alone discovered and furnished the evidence that X. Y. and Z. were employed by Talleyrand; and he alone brought home the direct, formal, and official assurances upon which the subsequent commission proceeded, and peace was made."

==Later Years==
Mr. Gerry returned to America in 1798, and in 1805 was elected by the republican party, Governor of Massachusetts. In the following year he retired, but in 1810 was again chosen Chief Magistrate of that commonwealth, which office he held for the two succeeding years.

==Vice Presidency and Death==
In 1812, he was elected Vice-President of the United States, into which office he was inaugurated on the 4th of March, 1813. While attending to his duties at Washington, he was suddenly summoned from the scene of his earthly labors. A beautiful monument, erected at the national expense, bears the following inscription: .

<blockquote>"ELBRIDGE GERRY, Vice-President of the United States, who died suddenly, in this city, on his way to the Capitol, as President of the Senate, November 23rd, 1814. Aged 70.</blockquote>

Gerry is the only signer of the [[Declaration of Independence]] buried in the nation's capitol.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=8qfTCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA157 Historical Dictionary of the U.S. Presidency]</ref>

==Legacy==
[[File:The Gerry-Mander.png|thumb|250px|right|An early political cartoon poking fun at the shape of the district]]
Elbridge Gerry is oftentimes remembered for the phrase ''gerrymandering'', which is pronounced with a hard ''G''.(like Gary) The word is a combination of his last name and ''mander'', as the district looked to some to bear a resemblance to a salamander.<ref>[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/gerrymander gerrymander]</ref>

The Elbridge Gerry House in Marblehead, Massachusetts, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.<ref>[http://www.nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com/ma/essex/state4.html MASSACHUSETTS - Essex County]</ref>

===Slavery===
Gerry's views on slavery, like most of the [[Founding Fathers]], was one of contempt. During the debate that took place at the convention, Gerry wondered aloud if that if slaves, who were considered property, could vote then why not other forms of property.

==Quotes==
* "Why should the blacks, who were property in the South, be in the rule of representation more than the cattle and horses of the North?"<ref>[http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_611.asp Madison Debates, June 11, 1787]</ref>

==See also==
* [[Lives of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence]]
* [[Siege of Boston]]
* [[Thomas Mifflin]]
* [[Gerrymandering]]

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

==External links==
* [https://books.google.com/books?id=K1oFAAAAYAAJ The life of Elbridge Gerry: With contemporary letters. To the close of the American revolution], 1828
* [https://books.google.com/books?id=P9kDAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA7 Biography of the Signers to the Declaration of Independence, Volume 8], 1827

{{USVicePresidents}}
{{Declaration of Independence}}
{{Constitutional Convention}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gerry, Elbridge}}

[[Category:Vice Presidents of the United States]]
[[Category:Founding Fathers]]
[[Category:Massachusetts Governors]]

Michael Knowles

2020-11-06T17:58:39Z

Samtheconservative: Added a mention of Knowles's banning from the RINO organization Fox News

'''Michael J. Knowles''' (born March 18, 1990) is a conservative author and host of The Michael Knowles Show. He is known for his blank book ''[[Reasons to Vote for Democrats: A Comprehensive Guide]]'' as well as his criticism of the political Left and Alt-right.<ref>[https://www.dailywire.com/author/michael-j-knowles Michael Knowles | The Daily Wire]</ref><ref>[https://www.prageru.com/video/what-is-the-alt-right/ What is the Alt-Right? | PragerU]</ref><ref>https://www.michaeljknowles.com/bio</ref> Knowles was banned from the [[RINO]] organization [[Fox News]] for his criticism of [[Greta Thunberg]], who had been exploited by enviromentalist-leftists to promote their agenda.

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Conservative Commentators]]

John Bell

2020-11-06T17:53:31Z

Samtheconservative:

'''John Bell''' (born near [[Nashville]], Tenn. 1797-1869) was an Representative and a Senator from [[Tennessee]]. He graduated from the University of Nashville in 1814 where he studied law. In 1816 he was admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Franklin, [[Tennessee]]. Bell became a member of the [[Tennessee]] state senate 1817 but declined reelection and moved to Nashville. In March 4, 1827 he was elected to the Twentieth Congress and to the six succeeding Congresses. He held the position of [[Speaker of the House]] of Representatives during the Twenty-third Congress and chairman of the [[Committee on Indian Affairs]] throughout the Twenty-first and Twenty-sixth Congresses, except for Twenty-third. In the Twenty-second and Twenty-third Congresses he held a position on the Committee on Judiciary and was appointed by President [[William Henry Harrison]] as [[Secretary of War]] on March 5, 1841. He held this position until September 12, 1841, when he resigned. Bell became a member of the State house of representatives in 1847. After becoming a member of the [[Whig Party|Whig]], he was elected to the [[United States Senate]] in 1847, and reelected in 1853.<ref name="bioguide.congress.gov">http://bioguide.congress.gov/biosearch/biosearch.asp</ref> Bell was a southern Whig, and neglected to join the anti-slavery Republican Party.

In 1860, he ran an unsuccessful bid for the Presidency as a member on the [[Constitutional Union]] ticket. After this loss he became an investor in ironworks at Cumberland Furnace in Chattanooga, Tenn.<ref name="bioguide.congress.gov"/>

Bell died at his home on the banks of the Cumberland River, near Cumberland Furnace on September 10, 1869. He was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery, near Nashville, Tenn.<ref name="bioguide.congress.gov"/>

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bell, John}}

[[Category:Former United States Representatives]]
[[Category:Speakers of the House(US)]]
[[Category:Tennessee]]
[[Category:Failed Presidential Candidates]]

Henry Clay

2020-11-06T17:49:45Z

Samtheconservative: Included a mention of Clay's fervent nationalism

[[image:henryclay.jpg|200px|thumb|Henry Clay]]
'''Henry Clay''' (April 12, 1777 – June 29, 1852) was one of the half-dozen most important American leaders in the 1812-1850 era, running three times for president, and losing each time. He represented the West—his state of [[Kentucky]]—in House and Senate, and founded and dominated the [[Whig Party]] during the [[Second Party System]]. Clay led the opposition to [[Andrew Jackson]], [[Martin Van Buren]], [[James Knox Polk]] and [[Jacksonian Democracy]]. He is called the "Great Compromiser" for his leadership that prevented the slavery issue from ripping the nation apart in the [[Missouri Compromise]] in 1820, the [[Nullification Crisis]] in 1832, and the [[Compromise of 1850]]. His ideas greatly influenced [[Abraham Lincoln]] and the [[Republican Party]], which emerged after his death and promoted his ideas of national greatness through industry, banking and modernization. Clay was a leading [[nationalist]].

Clay's economic goal was the modernization of the American economy, based on cities, railroads, factories, banks, and well-educated middle class entrepreneurs, in opposition to the Jacksonians who opposed modernization and wanted instead more western farms for their yeoman farmers. Clay opposed "[[Manifest Destiny]]", geographical expansion and the [[Mexican War]]. Clay is considered (along with [[Daniel Webster]]) the leading conservative of his age, even though he was often defeated by the [[Jacksonian Democracy|Jacksonian liberals]].

Clay owned slaves but tried to downplay or compromise the slavery issue, in opposition to [[John C. Calhoun]] who emphasized it. Clay served as [[Speaker of the House]], [[Secretary of State]], and [[Senator]] and is noted for his three unsuccessful [[president of the United States of America|presidential]] campaigns in 1824, 1832, and 1844. "I would rather be right than be president," he often said.

==Origins==
His father, a [[Baptist]] minister, died when Clay was four; the boy was limited to three years of country schooling. In 1791, when his mother remarried, the family moved to [[Richmond]], where Clay spent a year clerking in a store and then became a copyist for the High Court of Chancery. He later became secretary and protégé of Chancellor George Wythe—the first professor of law in America and a co-author of the [[Constitution]]. During 1796 Clay studied law with the attorney general of [[Virginia]], and in 1797 was admitted to the bar. Although well-connected in Richmond, he decided to move west, where opportunities seemed greater. In 1803 he moved to the growing city of [[Lexington, Kentucky]], the center of the rich [[bluegrass]] region with an economy based on horses, hemp, tobacco, and farming. Clay soon won recognition as a criminal lawyer and specialist in land cases; he became wealthy from fees, business operations, and land speculation. His marriage in April 1799 to Lucretia Hart united him with a prominent family. Clay had a warm, likable personality. He enjoyed a happy home life at Ashland, his plantation, where he bred livestock; he introduced Herefords into Kentucky from [[England]], improved the strains of mules, and bred race horses.

==Kentucky leader==
Clay's political base was not the whole of Kentucky but the bluegrass region - the plantation area where hemp farming was prominent. Lexington, the center of the bluegrass, was the major metropolis west of the Alleghenies. The town was surpassed by Louisville and Clay turned to help the hemp industry.<ref>Hemp was used only to make rope and cordage.</ref> The hemp growers and rope makers sought protective tariffs on cotton bagging and ropes, the market was the lower South, which insisted upon free trade.

==Political career==
Clay had an unusually long legislative career, serving in the state legislature, in the U.S. Senate (1806-7, 1809–10, 1831–42, 1849-52), and U.S. House (1811–21, 1823–25, Speaker 1811-20 and 1823–25). He was a leader of the [[Jeffersonian Republicans]] until the party collapsed in the mid-1820s. He tried to create the "National Republican Party" (in 1828), then threw his energies into a new national [[Whig party]].
===[[War of 1812]]===
Clay won election to the House of Representatives, taking his seat in 1811. His personality and skill in oratory had given him authority in Washington; Clay was promptly elected speaker, and by his unprecedented energy and competence gave the office a new significance. He was elected to the post six times, never meeting serious opposition.

Clay in 1811 became the leader of the "[[War Hawks]]," a combination of Westerners and Southerners that included [[Felix Grundy]] of Kentucky and [[John C. Calhoun]] of South Carolina. Displaying aggressive nationalism at a time Britain and France were at war, they were outraged by Great Britain's refusal to permit American trade with France, and its impressment of American seamen into the British navy. Kentuckians resented what it considered British influence among western Indians, which turned to massacre settlers on the American frontiersmen. Clay boasted that the Kentucky militia alone could seize Montreal and Upper Canada and so settle all frontier problems. As speaker of the House, he appointed "War Hawks" to key committees and supported President [[James Madison]] demands for war (the [[War of 1812]]) with Great Britain. The House and Senate declared war in June, after stormy debates, which showed New England strongly opposed the war. During the ensuing hostilities—which were made more difficult by the noncooperation of New England [[Federalists]], who felt that Madison had foisted an unwanted war on them—Clay's appeals for patriotism and fortitude were a source of strength to the administration.

In 1814 he was at Ghent with the American delegation, which
negotiated the [[Treaty of Ghent]], signed [[Christmas eve]] 1814. His shrewd surmise that the British would accept moderate terms despite their land victories, served the United States better than did [[John Quincy Adams]]' readiness to give the British free navigation of the Mississippi River in exchange for the right of New Englanders to fish in Canadian waters.

===American System===
Clay resumed the speakership of the House of Representatives
and, looking toward the presidency, began to develop his famous
"American System." It called for national defense, construction
of roads and canals with federal aid, protection of home industry
through duties on foreign imports, and establishment of a second
Bank of the United States, which was chartered in April 1816.
His defense of the South American revolution against Spanish
rule broke ground for the Monroe Doctrine. In 1820, when
Missouri's proposed statehood threatened the balance between
free and slave states, Clay emerged as "the Great Compromiser,"
holding a unique political position through his status as a
Southerner and a slaveholder on the one hand and as a friend to
Northern industry on the other. Under his solution, known as the
Missouri Compromise, Missouri entered the Union as a slave
state, Maine entered as a free state to preserve the balance, and
slavery was prohibited thereafter in any other new state north of
36°30'.
===Land issue===
Van Atta (2004) shows that the [[Panic of 1819]] and the ensuing economic depression helped shape the public lands policy proposed in Clay's American System. To achieve stability in the West, Clay favored land prices low enough for men of average means yet sufficiently high to protect the region from undesirable emigrants and to maintain the supply of workers needed by manufacturers. In opposing the transfer of public lands to control by the states, Clay advocated congressional distribution of public land proceeds to the states for use toward education, internal improvements, and colonization. Despite the failure of his land bills in 1832 and 1833, Clay articulated what became the Whig party position on public land issues. From the very first Clay wanted to include the newly independent Spanish American states in his system. As early as 1818 Clay indicated that the system of political democracy and commercial freedom should operate throughout the hemisphere, while tariffs could protect the Americas from further entanglements with Europe. Although the declaration of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823 fulfilled the political aspects of the system, Southerners in Congress were able to obstruct Clay's continued attempts to establish its commercial policies. Nor was he any more successful as Secretary of State from 1825 to 1829. Yet Clay is still considered by many to have been the first North American Pan-Americanist.<ref>Campbell (1967)</ref>

A leader of the Jeffersonian Republican party, he was defeated for president in 1824. He was Secretary of State under [[John Quincy Adams]] (1825–29). [[Andrew Jackson]] accused Clay and Adams of a "corrupt bargain" to elect Adams instead of Jackson in 1824. Clay and Jackson became bitter enemies, and Jackson defeated him for the presidency in 1832.

===Forming the Whig Party===
Clay formed the Whig Party in 1832, to support what he called "The American System," involving a National Bank, promotion of industrialization through tariffs, and support for internal improvements like canals and railroads. A rich slaveowner, he nevertheless brokered a series of north–south compromises over slavery, especially the Compromise of 1850, as well the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the "Corrupt Bargain" Compromise of 1825, the Tariff Compromise of 1833, the Slavery Compromises of 1837–39, the Texas Annexation Compromise of 1844, and his noncompromise on a protective banking system scheme in 1841. He was the foremost advocate of modernization, and was great admired by aspiring young men like [[Abraham Lincoln]].

===1844 campaign; Texas===
In 1844 the issue was annexation of Texas, which Clay opposed and his Democratic opponent [[James K. Polk]] supported. Polk won and Texas was annexed. As Morrison (1990) shows, Whig opposition was consistent with their beliefs in controlled expansion in a market economy. Clay opposed immediate annexation of Texas, arguing that gradual development of occupied land was preferential to a policy that could lead to war with Mexico. Whigs dismissed the Democrats' notion that expansion and democracy were intertwined and instead argued that personal and economic prosperity came from ordered progress, harmony, enterprise, and economic growth through the federal government. The Whigs perceived Texas annexation as a retreat from the foreign policy tenets established in the Federalist period, an attack on union stability, and an invitation to selfishness and fragmentation. Furthermore, Whigs concluded that Democrats carefully concocted annexation in order to pander to the laboring classes and extend slavery. The ability of the Democrats to make Texas annexation the paramount issue in the election of 1844 and equate territorial expansion with individual freedom was critical to Polk's defeat of Clay.

==Compromise of 1850==
[[Image:Henry-clay5.jpg|thumb|420px|Clay appeals for compromise in the Senate, 1850]] In 1849 Clay returned to the Senate in a last effort to modify the influence of the increasing numbers of extremists, Northern and Southern. His [[Compromise of 1850]] was intended to satisfy both sections, brought California into the Union as a free state, ended the slave trade in Washington DC (but did not abolish slavery there), and included other provisions intended to balance Southern and Northern interests. Its most controversial provision, the [[Fugitive Slave Law]], would have guaranteed slaveholders the return of their runaways and thus presumably have done away with the root of sectional differences. Clay hoped that this, his last and greatest compromise, would forever prevent a civil war. Alongside Clay in the Senate were the other two of the great triumvirate which had dominated American politics for more than thirty years.<ref>Peterson 1987</ref> The dying [[John C. Calhoun]] demanded for the South what was in effect equality with the federal government. [[Daniel Webster]], on the other hand, joined with Clay in his famous Seventh of March address and pleaded for an end to sectional strife. Clay was unable to get his compromise passed but Democrat [[Stephen A. Douglas]] unpackaged the compromise so that each component was passed by a different coalition. The compromise effectively postponed war for another decade, but Clay did not live to see the collapse of his Whig party after it lost the 1852 elections.
===Legacy===
He died in Washington on June 29, 1852. Clay lacked Webster's powerful logic and learning and Calhoun's cast-iron principles, but he was equal to both men in national power and he outranked them in the affection he inspired. Although his program of compromise suffered a loss of prestige during the secessionist crisis, it was renewed in the vision of one of his admirers: Abraham Lincoln called his fellow Kentuckian "my beau ideal of a statesman, the man for whom I fought all my humble life."<ref>Mark E. Neely, Jr. "American Nationalism in the Image of Henry Clay: Abraham Lincoln's Eulogy on Henry Clay in Context." ''Register of the Kentucky Historical Society'' 1975 73(1): 31-61.</ref>

==Bibliography==
* Baxter, Maurice G. ''Henry Clay and the American System'' (1995) 261pp
* Baxter, Maurice G. ''Henry Clay the Lawyer'' U. Press of Kentucky, 2000. 141pp
* Brown, Thomas. ''Politics and Statesmanship: Essays on the American Whig Party'' (1985) ch 5 [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=35907993 online edition]
* Brown, David. "Jeffersonian Ideology and the Second Party System." ''Historian'' 1999 62(1): 17–30. Issn: 0018-2370 Fulltext: in Swetswise and Ebsco
* Campbell, Randolph B. "The Spanish American Aspect of Henry Clay's American System." ''Americas'' 1967 24(1): 3-17.
* Eaton, Clement. ''Henry Clay and the Art of American Politics'' (1957), short
* Gammon, Samuel R. ''The Presidential Campaign of 1832'' (1922)[http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=58576510 online version]
* Holt, Michael F. ''The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War'' (1999) the standard history (over 1000 pages) [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=99173945 online version]
* Knupfer, Peter B. "Compromise and Statesmanship: Henry Clay’s Union." in Knupfer, ''The Union As It Is: Constitutional Unionism and Sectional Compromise, 1787-1861'' (1991), pp. 119–57.
* Mayo, Bernard. ''Henry Clay, Spokesman of the West'' (1937)
* Morrison, Michael A. "Westward the Curse of Empire: Texas Annexation and the American Whig Party." ''Journal of the Early Republic'' (1990) 10(2): 221–249. Issn: 0275-1275 Fulltext: in Jstor
* Peterson, Merrill D. ''The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay, and Calhoun'' (1987)
* Poage, George Rawlings. ''Henry Clay and the Whig Party'' (1936)
* Remini, Robert. ''Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union'' (1991), 818pp; the standard scholarly biography
* Schurz, Carl. ''Life of Henry Clay: American Statesmen''. 2 vol. (1899) [https://books.google.com/books/pdf/Life_of_Henry_Clay.pdf?vid=0qGyMNrCpXOh21xzeK&id=hrdi-qZgSdYC&output=pdf&sig=LAXdeffJ0aYktl12t29VBNb1Xlw online edition vol 1] [https://books.google.com/books/pdf/Life_of_Henry_Clay.pdf?vid=0ftV79J0aZ1FmRC6a2&id=TMS3EzxVJpMC&output=pdf&sig=-_CJroqtpWiBAssm9tM5xjXBfWw online edition vol 2]
* Shankman, Kimberly C. ''Compromise and the Constitution: The Political Thought of Henry Clay.'' 1999. 129 pp.
* Strahan, Randall; Moscardelli, Vincent G.; Haspel, Moshe; and Wike, Richard S. "The Clay Speakership Revisited" ''Polity'' 2000 32(4): 561–593. ISSN 0032-3497 [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0032-3497(200022)32%3A4%3C561%3ATCSR%3E2.0.CO%3B2-9 in JSTOR]
* Strahan, Randall. ''Leading Representatives: The Agency of Leaders in the Politics of the U.S. House'' (2007)
* Van Atta, John R. "Western Lands and the Political Economy of Henry Clay's American System, 1819-1832." ''Journal of the Early Republic'' 2001 21(4): 633–665. Issn: 0275-1275 [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0275-1275(200124)21%3A4%3C633%3AWLATPE%3E2.0.CO%3B2-X in Jstor]
* Van Deusen, Glyndon G. ''The Life of Henry Clay'' (1937)
* Watson, Harry L. ed. ''Andrew Jackson vs. Henry Clay: Democracy and Development in Antebellum America'' (1998) brief collection of readings
* Zarefsky, David. "Henry Clay and the Election of 1844: the Limits of a Rhetoric of Compromise" ''Rhetoric & Public Affairs'' 2003 6(1): 79–96. ISSN 1094-8392 fulltext in Swetwise

===Primary sources===
* Clay, Henry. ''The Papers of Henry Clay'', 1797–1852. Edited by James Hopkins, Mary Hargreaves, Robert Seager II, Melba Porter Hay et al. 11 vols. University Press of Kentucky, 1959–1992. [http://tera-3.ul.cs.cmu.edu/cgi-bin/reader.pl?call=31007&search= vol 1 online, 1797-1814]
* Clay, Henry. ''Works of Henry Clay'', 7 vols. (1897) [https://books.google.com/books?id=1HUDAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:henry+inauthor:clay+inpublisher:henry+inpublisher:clay&lr=&num=30&as_brr=1 online edition]

====Notes====
<references/>
==External links==
* [https://www.c-span.org/Events/The-Contenders-Henry-Clay/10737431071/ C-SPAN biography program on Henry Clay]
* [https://librivox.org/author/8682 Works by Henry Clay - text and free audio] - [[LibriVox]]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Clay, Henry}}

[[Category:Speakers of the House(US)]]
[[Category:United States History]]
[[Category:Children of Clergy]]
[[Category:Early National U.S.]]
[[Category:Democratic Party]]
[[Category:Diplomacy]]
[[Category:Whig Party]]
[[Category:Western United States]]
[[Category:Conservatives]]
[[Category:Jacksonian Democracy]]
[[Category:Failed Presidential Candidates]]