The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President

by Noah Feldman

Overview

A sweeping reexamination of the Founding Father who transformed the United States in each of his political “lives”—as a revolutionary thinker, as a partisan political strategist, and as a president

“In order to understand America and its Constitution, it is necessary to understand James Madison.”—Walter Isaacson, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Leonardo da Vinci

Over the course of his life, James Madison changed the United States three times: First, he designed the Constitution, led the struggle for its adoption and ratification, then drafted the Bill of Rights. As an older, cannier politician he co-founded the original Republican party, setting the course of American political partisanship. Finally, having pioneered a foreign policy based on economic sanctions, he took the United States into a high-risk conflict, becoming the first wartime president and, despite the odds, winning.

Now Noah Feldman offers an intriguing portrait of this elusive genius and the constitutional republic he created—and how both evolved to meet unforeseen challenges. Madison hoped to eradicate partisanship yet found himself giving voice to, and institutionalizing, the political divide. Madison’s lifelong loyalty to Thomas Jefferson led to an irrevocable break with George Washington, hero of the American Revolution. Madison closely collaborated with Alexander Hamilton on the Federalist papers—yet their different visions for the United States left them enemies.

Alliances defined Madison, too. The vivacious Dolley Madison used her social and political talents to win her husband new supporters in Washington—and define the diplomatic customs of the capital’s society. Madison’s relationship with James Monroe, a mixture of friendship and rivalry, shaped his presidency and the outcome of the War of 1812.

We may be more familiar with other Founding Fathers, but the United States today is in many ways Madisonian in nature. Madison predicted that foreign threats would justify the curtailment of civil liberties. He feared economic inequality and the power of financial markets over politics, believing that government by the people demanded resistance to wealth. Madison was the first Founding Father to recognize the importance of public opinion, and the first to understand that the media could function as a safeguard to liberty.

The Three Lives of James Madison is an illuminating biography of the man whose creativity and tenacity gave us America’s distinctive form of government. His collaborations, struggles, and contradictions define the United States to this day.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250267009
Publisher:	Picador
Publication date:	02/11/2020
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	832
Sales rank:	209,975
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Noah Feldman is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard University as well as a Senior Fellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a contributing writer for Bloomberg Opinion, host of the podcast Deep Background, and the author of Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR's Great Supreme Court Justices as well as Cool War: The Future of Global Competition, among other books.

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Table of Contents

CONTENTS

Preface xiii
Author’s Note xix

BOOK I: CONSTITUTION

1. Friendships 3
2. Rise 28
3. Crisis 68
4. Philadelphia 106
5. Compromise 151
6. Ratification 198

BOOK II: PARTY

7. The Bill of Rights 245
8. Debts 286
9. Enemies 337
10. The President and His Party 372
11. In the Shade 410

BOOK III: WAR

12. Secretary of State 443
13. Neutrality 472
14. President 502
15. War 547
16. Failure and Redemption 575

Conclusion: Legacy 610
Acknowledgments 629
Notes 631
Bibliography 717
Index 731

Editorial Reviews

Illuminating and absorbing . . . [Noah] Feldman’s deeply thoughtful study shows that the three identities of James Madison constituted one exceptional life, which effectively mirrored the evolving identity of the American republic in its most formative phase. In Feldman’s capable hands, Madison becomes the original embodiment of our ‘living Constitution.’”—Susan Dunn, The New York Times Book Review

"[A] refreshingly circumspect biography . . . Feldman offers fresh insight into a man who played an outsized role in our nation’s founding as well as a lucid account of the history of those years." —Justice John Paul Stevens (Ret.), Michigan Law Review

“Grand . . . Feldman is a very accessible and quietly stylish writer, and his approach to his subject is a fresh one.”—Esquire

“Groundbreaking . . . The Three Lives of James Madison studies all the aspects of Madison’s complicated public career, as both the main author of the Constitution to the country’s first wartime president to the co-founder of the Democratic-Republican Party . . . [Feldman is] uniformly excellent on Madison the political creature, which can’t help but resonate with the present day . . . [A] superb account.”—Steve Donoghue, The Christian Science Monitor

“Feldman, the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, has written . . . a palliative for the age of Trump that never names the current president, as told through the political evolution of an important weirdo whose constant recalibrations enabled him, with increasing success, to fight epic battles with his own, founding era ‘haters and losers’ . . . At once subtle and candid . . . [this book’s] timely message is actually evergreen: the extreme partisanship that leaves us in varying states of frustration, alarm, and paranoia has always been a condition of the American experiment.” —Alexis Coe, The New Yorker

“A welcome addition to Madison scholarship. Feldman’s writing is crisp, his organization is sound, and his analysis is first-rate. He is an obvious admirer of his subject, but his work never lapses into hagiography.” —Jay Cost, National Review

“James Madison was instrumental in framing the constitutional government that serves the American people today . . . This is an insightful examination on how theories and ideals are applied and changed by real-life circumstances.”—Library Journal

“The most stimulating political book that I have read in as long as I can remember. Madison was a young genius obsessed with the idea of constitution-making and government structure and who, in his early twenties, started designing the American government. Almost every debate we’re having now about politics comes back in some way or another to Madison’s vision and the questions Madison was thinking about in the 1770s and 1780s . . . Madison was way more important to our country than Hamilton was.”—Jacob Weisberg, editor in chief of The Slate Group and author of The Bush Tragedy

“Feldman brings a scholarly rigor and a gift for narrative to this impressive account of the sprawling—and often perplexing—life of James Madison.”—Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

“Feldman gives us a rich portrait of our fourth president in all his many aspects: constitution maker, politician, partisan, friend, slaveholder, husband, president, and elder statesman. The result is a fresh, bold, and much-needed look at a pivotal figure in American and, therefore, world history.”—Annette Gordon-Reed, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family

“Feldman, combining laudable scholarship with delightful writing, does a brilliant job of showing how Madison’s precise and reasoned mind, along with his personal friendships and rivalries, created our code as a nation.”—Walter Isaacson, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Leonardo da Vinci

“Feldman skillfully explains the evolving genius of Madison with precision and clarity. The result is a narrative both epic in scope and intimate in detail.”—David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler, authors of Washington’s Circle: The Creation of the President

From the Publisher

…[an] illuminating and absorbing political biography…The new nation, an idea still in progress, would inevitably call for reassessment, flexibility and innovation, and Feldman skillfully navigates the zigzag path of Madison's recalibrations…Feldman's deeply thoughtful study shows that the three identities of James Madison constituted one exceptional life, which effectively mirrored the evolving identity of the American republic in its most formative phase. In Feldman's capable hands, Madison becomes the original embodiment of our "living Constitution."

The New York Times Book Review - Susan Dunn

08/14/2017
Richly detailed and propelled by clear, thoughtful analysis, this comprehensive biography by Harvard constitutional-law scholar Feldman (Cool War) traces the arc of Madison’s career from his early influence on the Constitution through his role as cofounder of the Democratic-Republican Party to his tenure as America’s fourth president. In addressing each of Madison’s distinct “public lives,” Feldman situates his subject within a particular historical moment, while also attending to his complex relationships with Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and other key thinkers of the early republic. Madison emerges as an intense, introverted figure: his social awkwardness hardly endeared him to the public and his strongly held political beliefs often pushed him into conflict with former allies. Yet as Feldman shows, Madison’s deep concern for liberty and the potential danger of faction also enabled him to change his mind on crucial issues, including the power of a centralized government. In addition to his well-developed portrait of Madison, Feldman offers lucid readings of founding documents such as The Federalist papers, reinterpreting these texts with a fresh perspective informed by close attention to language and the law. With its lively prose and political acumen, this biography will be of interest to general-history readers and scholars alike. Agent: Andrew Wylie, Wylie Agency. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

10/01/2017
James Madison (1751-1836) was instrumental in framing the constitutional government that serves the American people today, with his efforts at the Philadelphia Convention of 1787. Madison ended the "Genius" phase of his political life, as Feldman (law, Harvard Univ.; Cool War) labels it, by successfully persuading his fellow Virginians to ratify the new form of government at a critical point in the process. The politician was prepared to retire until he saw his concept of republican government threatened; he entered the second phase of his political life as a partisan, representing a Virginia district in the First Congress. Here, he became increasingly adept at practicing politics while becoming political enemies with Alexander Hamilton, a former partner in ratifying the U.S. Constitution. Madison viewed Hamilton's political ideas as threats to true republican government. It led him, along with Thomas Jefferson, to form the first political party (Democratic-Republican). In his third political life, as Jefferson's secretary of state and later as president, Madison tried to remain faithful to his ideals. VERDICT Based on primary and secondary sources, this is an insightful examination on how theories and ideals are applied and changed by real-life circumstances. [See Prepub Alert, 4/17/17.]—Glen Edward Taul, formerly with Campbellsville Univ., KY

Library Journal

So you think you know the fourth president of the USA. Allow John Mayer to explain how you haven’t even scratched the surface of this multifaceted and complex Founding Father. One feels like one is sitting in a classroom learning about the most interesting man in America. As Madison masterfully evolved, so Mayer does throughout this massive work. His ability to keep the listener’s attention is a credit to his skills as a narrator. With a tone of excitement during war and gravitas during the writing of the Constitution, he ensures that the listener understands the changes that were necessary in one man at a crucial time in the infancy of this great nation. T.D. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

FEBRUARY 2018 - AudioFile

So you think you know the fourth president of the USA. Allow John Mayer to explain how you haven’t even scratched the surface of this multifaceted and complex Founding Father. One feels like one is sitting in a classroom learning about the most interesting man in America. As Madison masterfully evolved, so Mayer does throughout this massive work. His ability to keep the listener’s attention is a credit to his skills as a narrator. With a tone of excitement during war and gravitas during the writing of the Constitution, he ensures that the listener understands the changes that were necessary in one man at a crucial time in the infancy of this great nation. T.D. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

FEBRUARY 2018 - AudioFile

2017-07-17
Feldman (Law/Harvard Univ.; Cool War: The Future of Global Competition, 2013, etc.) returns with a substantial biography of our fourth president.The title's "three lives" refer to distinct phases in the career of James Madison (1751-1836). He appears first as the primary architect of the Constitution at the Philadelphia convention in 1787 and a major proponent of its ratification, accomplishments which alone would have cemented his place in history. There followed a bleak period leading the opposition in the House of Representatives during the Federalist ascendancy in the 1790s. Finally, Madison returned to executive power as Thomas Jefferson's secretary of state and then as president. Introverted and bookish, Madison was inclined to grand political theories and a naïve expectation that people and nations would act rationally. He crafted a political system intended to accommodate the clash of disagreement while maintaining personal amity, and he went to great lengths to maintain friendships with his opponents. Ironically, he nevertheless became a leading partisan in a system he had designed to render parties unnecessary, and he began the unfortunate practice of labeling policies he disagreed with as unconstitutional, leading to breaks with former friends George Washington and Alexander Hamilton. Feldman's scholarly yet accessible account emphasizes the evolution of Madison's views on the Constitution and his hard-earned flexibility as well as the maturation of his viewpoints and skills as he learned to adapt pure theories of government to political realities and then to make public virtues of the practical necessities. The richly detailed narrative, while occasionally lacking fire, is suitable for general readers; Feldman's presentation of Madison's adventures when the British burned the capital in 1814 is particularly rousing. The author skates over some setbacks and controversial decisions, like the rejection of a British armistice offer early in the War of 1812, and makes a brave job of harmonizing Madison's lifelong devotion to personal liberty with his status as a slaveholder. A timely biography presenting a valuable counterbalance to the current enthusiasm for Hamilton.

Kirkus Reviews