Founding Fathers: Complete Biographies, Their Articles, Historical & Political Documents. Emory Speer
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heir and his brothers and sisters.
James new began preparation for college and, influenced by his father's ideas of the great importance of a thorough education, he devoted his whole time to reading and study. neglecting the fishing, hunting, riding and boating which formed the healthy recreations of the young planters of the Old Dominion, and which were just as necessary to the future welfare of the boy as his books and studies.
In the adjoining county of Albemarle, and just a pleasant day's ride from Montpellier, was Shadwell, the home of Thomas Jefferson who, although eight years older than James Madison, was much attached to the bright young boy, and whom the latter looked upon as a model of learning and Wisdom and to Whom he came for advice and assistance in his studies. Jefferson, however, did not always prove a wise counsellor. Strong in mind and body, with an iron constitution that seemed never to tire, he laid out a course of study for his frail young friend which would have taxed his own great strength; and in trying to follow the course laid down for him Madison's health began to fail before he went to college.
In 1769, James Madison was sent to Princeton College, New Jersey, With a much better preparation than most boys of his day.
The year 1769 was, perhaps, the beginning of American history. It was the year in which the Virginia House of Burgesses asserted the exclusive right of the colonies to tax themselves, and declared that Massachusetts was oppressed and that. moreover, the oppression of one colony, was the oppression of all. For this patriotic assertion, (disloyalty, the English Governor called it), the House had been dissolved by the Governor and the members had re-assembled in the ballroom of the old Raleigh tavern at Williamsburg, where they formed a non-importation league. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were members of that House of Burgesses and both signed the league.
We may be sure that Jefferson, in his long letters to his young friend at Princeton College, did not neglect to tell him of all these stirring incidents and, although at that time New Jersey was the quietest of the English colonies. she was afterwards to have more battles fought upon her soil in the grand struggle for Liberty than any other state except New York.
At Princeton the young student, fresh from a Southern plantation, made the acquaintance of men, both young and old, from all the other colonies; men whose lives had been very different from his own, whose ancestors came from different countries and whose habits. manners, and principles were new and strange to the young Southerner. But he had entered college with good habits, a high purpose, and a stainless moral character which he kept pure and spotless to the end of his long and busy life. He was devout and high-minded, a member of the Established Church of England and fond of reading theology.
Had Madison been content to take the regular college course of study his capable brain could easily have accomplished the task; but with the example of Thomas Jefferson ever before him, he took up study after study outside the regular college course. The result was that, when at the end of three years he graduated from Princeton with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. his health was nearly ruined. But he remained at college another year to take a postgraduate course; then, in 1772, he returned to Montpellier and assisted his father in the management of their estate, and became the teacher of his younger brothers and sisters. The stirring events of that time had roused the interest of the students even in the seclusion of Princeton and Madison, like all young Americans, resented the oppression and tyranny of King George.
In a letter written to his father in July, 1770, he said: "We have no public news but the base conduct of the merchants of New York, in breaking through their spirited resolutions not to import. Their letter to the merchants of Philadelphia, requesting their concurrence. was lately burned by the students of this place, in the college yard, all of them in their black gowns. with the college bell tolling."
Looking back one hundred and thirty years at that picture of the college boys of Princeton, Wearing their black gowns and gathered in the yard, solemnly burning the letter their patriotic spirits condemned, we can see plainly the love of liberty, the defiance of tyranny and oppression which prompted the act, and it would have been well for them had King George and his ministers heeded the warning. A few years later many of those boys exchanged their black gowns for the Continental uniform, while the Boston school boys who, the winter before had snow-balled the redcoats off their playground, were waiting behind the breastworks of Breed's Hill, with leaden bullets instead of snowballs.
The four years after James Madison left Princeton were years of patient waiting and steady preparation on the part of the Colonies for the conflict that all could see must come. Younger men were taking an active part in their country's service, and the ties which had bound the older generations to the "mother-country," had little influence with them.
British oppression still continued. Boston held her famous Tea Party and was punished by the passage of the Boston Port Bill, which closed the harbors of Massachusetts. The Continental Congress met in Philadelphia and committees of safety were appointed in the different counties. Among those chosen in Orange County, Virginia, were James Madison, Sr., and James Madison, Jr.
Virginia contributed her full share of men and materials to the Continental Army at Boston, and furnished the Commander-in-Chief. The people in Virginia were also kept busy from the beginning to the end of the Revolutionary War in protecting their frontier settlements from the Indians, who, instigated by the British, made frequent raids upon the settlers, destroying life and property. Madison wrote: "From the best accounts l can obtain from our frontiers. the savages are determined on the extirpation of the inhabitants and no longer leave them the alternative of death or captivity. It is asserted that there is not an inhabitant for some hundreds of miles back (which have been settled for many years) except those who are in forts, or in some military camp.
The Continental Army was steadily increasing in numbers and improving in training. In speaking of it to a friend, James Madison said: "There will by spring, I expect, be some thousands of well-trained. high-spirited men, ready to meet danger whenever it appears, who are influenced by no mercenary principles, but bearing their own expenses, and having the prospect of no recompense but the honor and safety of their country."
Again, when the news of the blow struck at Lexington and Concord reached him, he wrote: "It is our opinion that the blow struck in the Massachusetts colony is a hostile attack on this and every other colony, and a sufficient warrant to use violence and reprisal in all cases in which it may be expedient for our security and safety."
James Madison was now twenty-three years old, so frail in body that he could take no active part in the war for liberty, but so strong in principles, so fixed in his convictions of duty, so clear in perception of truth, right, and sound public policy, that he came to be considered one of the wisest statesmen in the legislative councils of his country.
The year 1776 brought gloomy prospects for the colonies. On New Year's Day the people of Virginia learned what British tyranny and oppression could do. Already the border Indians had been urged to savage warfare by British officers; and on January 1, 1776, without any provocation, save the desire to teach the colonies what the King's vengeance meant, an English fleet bombarded and destroyed Norfolk, the largest and richest town in the Virginia colony. Five thousand people, innocent of any transgression against British authority, were driven from their homes in midwinter, their houses burned, their property confiscated, and the people of the colony were plainly told that all settlements along the coast would soon share the same fate.
The Virginians bitterly resented this outrage and with sad hearts prepared to resist British authority and oppression. When the April elections took place the people of Orange County sent James Madison as their delegate to the state convention which was held in May at Williamsburg. The burning of Norfolk had prepared the people of Virginia for Independence, just as Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill had prepared Massachusetts, and the Williamsburg convention, therefore, sent their delegates to Congress with instructions to urge an immediate declaration of Independence. At the same time Virginia declared herself an independent state.
James Madison was a member of the committee appointed to draft a State Constitution. One of the articles of the new constitution proposed by him declared that "all men are entitled to the free and full exercise of their religion;" but this clause was dropped. James Madison, the youngest member, made a deep and lasting impression