Page 170 - Beers With Our Founding Fathers

Beers with our Founding Fathers

life. Madison was appointed, with George Mason, to the

constitution committee for Virginia and was most noted for his
contribution to drafting the right to religious freedom (in 1783 he

would write Virginia’s Statute of Religious Freedom’. When the
Continental Congress was seeking the support and alliance of

France, Madison would draft the communications from Virginia’s
Governor’s Council to France. In 1780 he represented Virginia at the

Continental Congress in Philadelphia. In 1787 he would begin his
work on our Constitution, as a Virginia delegate to the

Constitutional Convention.
As a Federalist, Madison was in favor of a strong central

government and, as he drafted for Virginia, he proposed a central
government of three branches – executive, legislative and judicial.

Each would have equal, but different authorities which would
provide a balance through checks and balances. Madison’s bold and

innovative constitutional concepts, although supported by the
majority, faced opposition – including in his own Virginia and with

strong opposition by fellow Virginian and revolutionary, Patrick
Henry – an Anti-Federalist. Through the Federalist Papers and a Bill

of Rights (introduced to the House of Representatives in 1789),
Madison and his co-authors were able to persuade the states to

unanimously ratify the Constitution in 1788.
Madison was elected to the first House of Representatives by

the people of Virginia in 1789. In introducing the Bill of Rights, he

was most concerned with individual rights of religion, speech and
the judicial process. Like Thomas Jefferson, Madison was not in
complete agreement with how George Washington and Alexander

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