Jack N. Rakove, James Madison and the Creation of the American Republic (Pearson, 1990).
Reviewed by Hampton N. Roy, September 5, 2017.
Jack N. Rakove is currently the W.R. Coe Professor of History and American Studies, as well as a professor of political science at Stanford University. He is the author of six books and has won numerous awards, most notable the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for History for his work questioning the validity of originalism, Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution (Knopf, 1996). However, this review is of one of his lesser known works, James Madison and the Creation of the American Republic (Pearson, 1990), which begins with the birth of Madison in 1751 on his father’s plantation near Port …show more content…
He faithfully held this post, even serving as a delegate to the Fifth Virginia Convention (where he is known for arguing for strong protections for freedom of religion), but he was soon tapped in 1777 by the Assembly of Virginia to participate in an eight-person advisory Council of State. After only two years in his advisory position, James Madison was elected as a Virginia delegate to the Congress of the Confederation and began to tackle the biggest problems facing the American Confederacy: rampant inflation, lack of cooperation between states, a lack of consistent revenue for the federal government, and a costly war against Great Britain. In 1784, he gave up his post and was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates until 1786. In 1786, he began his most famous endeavor, the creation of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to replace the Articles of Confederation from 1776. He was able to convince George Washington to attend the 1787 Philadelphia convention which greatly helped his cause, and through his proposed Virginia Plan, pushed his vision for a new Constitution. After the convention, the ratification debates began and Madison (along with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay) was at the forefront with his Federalist Papers, arguing for the many points of his plan. In 1788, the Constitution was ratified …show more content…
Rakove makes the astute observation that many Americans are sadly not aware of the beginning years of their Republic, much less are they aware of its creator, James Madison. In his short and concise book, Rakove seamlessly integrates political science and history into one whole, moving from discussing Madison to the early Confederation and Republic’s many moving parts, then back to Madison. Fortunately for Rakove, Madison felt the need to keep an accurate historical record for later Americans, and so he wrote many of this thoughts and feelings down, allowing for a level of “direct connectivity” between the reader and Madison himself. As well as these primary sources, Rakove employs many other highly-praised secondary sources to better uncover Madison and his life for the general reader. Overall, this book is a wonderfully useful piece of historical research that has been designed for use by anyone interested in learning more about early American history and politics, and confirms Rakove’s thesis that Madison was indeed a remarkable
Reviewed by Hampton N. Roy, September 5, 2017.
Jack N. Rakove is currently the W.R. Coe Professor of History and American Studies, as well as a professor of political science at Stanford University. He is the author of six books and has won numerous awards, most notable the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for History for his work questioning the validity of originalism, Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution (Knopf, 1996). However, this review is of one of his lesser known works, James Madison and the Creation of the American Republic (Pearson, 1990), which begins with the birth of Madison in 1751 on his father’s plantation near Port …show more content…
He faithfully held this post, even serving as a delegate to the Fifth Virginia Convention (where he is known for arguing for strong protections for freedom of religion), but he was soon tapped in 1777 by the Assembly of Virginia to participate in an eight-person advisory Council of State. After only two years in his advisory position, James Madison was elected as a Virginia delegate to the Congress of the Confederation and began to tackle the biggest problems facing the American Confederacy: rampant inflation, lack of cooperation between states, a lack of consistent revenue for the federal government, and a costly war against Great Britain. In 1784, he gave up his post and was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates until 1786. In 1786, he began his most famous endeavor, the creation of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to replace the Articles of Confederation from 1776. He was able to convince George Washington to attend the 1787 Philadelphia convention which greatly helped his cause, and through his proposed Virginia Plan, pushed his vision for a new Constitution. After the convention, the ratification debates began and Madison (along with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay) was at the forefront with his Federalist Papers, arguing for the many points of his plan. In 1788, the Constitution was ratified …show more content…
Rakove makes the astute observation that many Americans are sadly not aware of the beginning years of their Republic, much less are they aware of its creator, James Madison. In his short and concise book, Rakove seamlessly integrates political science and history into one whole, moving from discussing Madison to the early Confederation and Republic’s many moving parts, then back to Madison. Fortunately for Rakove, Madison felt the need to keep an accurate historical record for later Americans, and so he wrote many of this thoughts and feelings down, allowing for a level of “direct connectivity” between the reader and Madison himself. As well as these primary sources, Rakove employs many other highly-praised secondary sources to better uncover Madison and his life for the general reader. Overall, this book is a wonderfully useful piece of historical research that has been designed for use by anyone interested in learning more about early American history and politics, and confirms Rakove’s thesis that Madison was indeed a remarkable