JAMES MADISON, fourth President of the United States, was born at Port Conway, Virginia, March 16th, 1751. His place as an essayist is determined by the fact that he was associated with Hamilton and Jay in writing the papers of the Federalist (1787–88). Twenty-nine of the eighty-five essays in the series are by Madison, five by Jay, and the rest by Hamilton. Madison’s style is clear and forcible. He had no intention of attempting to be entertaining, and no one is likely to read many of the Federalist essays merely for amusement; but Madison did through these essays more than was done by any other writer, except Hamilton, to bring about the adoption of the Federal Constitution, and they will always be studied by those who wish to have a definite understanding of the principles underlying American institutions. Madison was a man of thorough intellectual training and wide reading. He graduated at Princeton College in 1771 and was almost immediately drawn into the movement which culminated in the Revolution. He was a member of the Continental Congress, of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and of the Federal Congress from 1789 to 1797. The Virginia Resolutions of 1798, which represented a sharply defined issue with the views of the Federalist, were drawn by him; but as Madison interpreted them they did not trouble him with any sense of inconsistency, and he resented a subsequent attempt to base the theory of Nullification upon them. His authorship of them led to his choice as Secretary of State under Jefferson, and to his election to the Presidency as Jefferson’s successor (1809–17). He died at Montpelier, Orange County, Virginia, June 28th, 1836.