Seven Founders -- George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay -- determined the destinies of the new nation.

Historians have traditionally regarded the great debates of the Seventeen Nineties as polarizing the issues of centralized vs. limited government, with Hamilton and the nationalists supporting the former and Jefferson and Madison upholding the latter position.

The state's rights position was formulated by Jefferson and Madison in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolves, but in their later careers as heads of state the two proved themselves better Hamiltonians than Jeffersonians.

In purchasing Louisiana, Jefferson had to adopt Hamilton's broad construction of the Constitution, and so did Madison in advocating the rechartering of Hamilton's bank, which he had so strenuously opposed at its inception, and in adopting a Hamiltonian protective tariff.

Opposition to them resulted in the highly controversial Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, authored by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson.

Jefferson and James Madison also secretly drafted the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions denouncing the federal legislation, though state legislatures rejected these resolutions.

Though the resolutions followed the " interposition " approach of James Madison, Jefferson advocated nullification and at one point drafted a threat for Kentucky to secede.

" Chernow argues that neither Jefferson nor Madison sensed that they had sponsored measures as inimical as the Alien and Sedition Acts themselves.

In 1787, James Madison wrote Thomas Jefferson in France for background information on constitutional government to use at the Constitutional Convention.

* Presidents Park – Freshmen – Completed in 1989, and housing approximately 1, 100 students in twelve halls ( Adams, Kennedy, Roosevelt, Harrison, Lincoln, Truman, Jackson, Madison, Wilson, Jefferson, Monroe, Washington ).

Breaking with Hamilton and what became the Federalist Party in 1791, Madison and Thomas Jefferson organized what they called the Republican Party ( later called by historians the Democratic-Republican Party ) He co-authored, along with Thomas Jefferson, the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions in 1798 to protest the Alien and Sedition Acts.

As Jefferson ’ s Secretary of State ( 1801 – 1809 ), Madison supervised the Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the nation ’ s size.

As a young man during the American Revolutionary War, Madison served in the Virginia state legislature ( 1776 – 79 ), where he became known as a protégé of the delegate Thomas Jefferson.

Madison attained prominence in Virginia politics, working with Jefferson to draft the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which was finally passed in 1786.

Working closely with Madison and Jefferson, Bishop Madison helped lead the College through the changes involving separation from both Great Britain and the Church of England.

Madison and Thomas Jefferson were the leaders of this second group.

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.

Congressman Madison and Vice President Jefferson were outraged.

Madison and Jefferson secretly drafted the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions declaring the Alien and Sedition Acts to be unconstitutional and noted that " states, in contesting obnoxious laws, should ' interpose for arresting the progress of the evil.

Jefferson went further, urging states to secede if necessary, though Madison convinced Jefferson to back down from this extreme view.

On September 15, 1794, James Madison married Dolley Payne Todd, a young widow, at Harewood, in what is now Jefferson County, West Virginia.

* 1789 – James Madison introduces twelve proposed amendments to the United States Constitution in the House of Representatives ; by 1791, ten of them are ratified by the state legislatures and become the Bill of Rights ; another is eventually ratified in 1992 to become the 27th Amendment.

In 1789, Madison became a leader in the new House of Representatives, drafting many basic laws.

On June 8, 1789, Madison introduced his bill proposing amendments consisting of Nine Articles comprising up to 20 Amendments depending on how one counted.

Nonetheless, the Court stopped short of compelling Madison ( by writ of mandamus ) to hand over Marbury's commission, instead holding that the provision of the Judiciary Act of 1789 that enabled Marbury to bring his claim to the Supreme Court was itself unconstitutional, since it purported to extend the Court's original jurisdiction beyond that which Article III established.

James Madison changed " ought " to " shall ", when he proposed the amendment to Congress in 1789.

In 1789, while introducing to the House of Representatives nineteen draft Amendments, James Madison addressed what would become the Ninth Amendment as follows:

* " Proposed Amendments to the Constitution " by James Madison ( 1789 )

In 1789 when James Madison proposed to insert the word " national " in the part of the Bill of Rights providing that " no religion shall be established by law ," Elbridge Gerry told Congress that the Antifederalists had objected to the injustice of that name because they favored a federal government, while the Federalists favored " a national one.

James Madison drafted the Virginia Plan in 1787 and the Bill of Rights in 1789.

Madison became a leading member of the U. S. House of Representatives from Virginia ( 1789 – 1797 ), Secretary of State ( 1801 – 1809 ), and ultimately the fourth President of the United States.

Sometimes called the " Congressional Compensation Amendment of 1789 ", the " Congressional Pay Amendment ", and the " Madison Amendment ", it was intended to serve as a restraint on the power of Congress to set its own salary — an obvious potential for conflict of interest.

Presented in the United States House of Representatives by Representative James Madison of Virginia, this amendment was the second of the twelve Constitutional amendments originally submitted to the state legislatures for ratification by the 1st Congress on September 25, 1789, the last ten of which became the United States Bill of Rights on December 15, 1791.

* 1803-Marbury v. Madison ( 5 US 137 1803 ) allows Supreme Court to invalidate law passed by the United States Congress for first time: the Judiciary Act of 1789

James Madison was also influenced by the Declaration while drafting the Bill of Rights ( completed September 1787, approved 1789 ), as was the Marquis de Lafayette in voting the French Revolution's Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen ( 1789 ).

On the panel of the northwest interior wall is an excerpt from " A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, 1777 ", except for the last sentence, which is taken from a letter of August 28, 1789, to James Madison:

On August 15, 1789 Madison said, " he apprehended the meaning of the words to be, that Congress should not establish a religion, and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any manner contrary to their conscience ....”

When the Bill of Rights was originally proposed by Congress in 1789 to the states, various substantive and procedural rights were " classed according to their affinity to each other " instead of being submitted to the states " as a single act to be adopted or rejected in the gross ," as James Madison put it.

Scalia pointed to several historical examples of calling on divine guidance by American Presidents, including Washington's proclamation of the Thanksgiving holiday in 1789 and the inaugural addresses of both Madison and Thomas Jefferson.

James Madison sponsored him as Clerk of the House in 1789.

In a letter written by James Madison to Thomas Jefferson on March 29, 1789, ' Mr W Fitzhugh of Chatham ' is described as a Federalist

In 1789, James Madison presented to the First United States Congress a series of ten Amendments to the United States Constitution, today known as the Bill of Rights.

Similarly, in the US, the Judiciary Act of 1789, which was famously ruled unconstitutional in part by Marbury v. Madison, was called " An Act to establish the Judicial Courts of the United States ".

This other proposal, dating back to the 1st Congress in 1789, had been authored by James Madison, then a member of the U. S. House of Representatives.