James Madison and the Making of America [Hardcover]

Kevin R. C. Gutzman (Author)

Book Description

Release date: February 14, 2012

In James Madison and the Making of America, historian Kevin Gutzman looks beyond the way James Madison is traditionally seen -- as "The Father of the Constitution” -- to find a more complex and sometimes contradictory portrait of this influential Founding Father and the ways in which he influenced the spirit of today's United States.  Instead of an idealized portrait of Madison, Gutzman treats readers to the flesh-and-blood story of a man who often performed his founding deeds in spite of himself: Madison’s fame rests on his participation in the writing of The Federalist Papers and his role in drafting the Bill of Rights and Constitution. Today, his contribution to those documents is largely misunderstood.  He thought that the Bill of Rights was unnecessary and insisted that it not be included in the Constitution, a document he found entirely inadequate and predicted would soon fail. Madison helped to create the first American political party, the first party to call itself “Republican”, but only after he had argued that political parties, in general, were harmful.  Madison served as Secretary of State and then as President during the early years of the United States and the War of 1812; however, the American foreign policy he implemented in 1801-1817 ultimately resulted in the British burning down the Capitol and the White House.  In so many ways, the contradictions both in Madison’s thinking and in the way he governed foreshadowed the conflicted state of our Union now.  His greatest legacy—the disestablishment of Virginia’s state church and adoption of the libertarian Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom—is often omitted from discussion of his career.  Yet, understanding the way in which Madison saw the relationship between the church and state is key to understanding the real man.  Kevin Gutzman's James Madison and the Making of America promises to become the standard biography of our fourth President.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Kevin R.C. Gutzman's James Madison and the Making of America revels in the intrigue of political debate and the intricacies of the political process, fashioning a narrative that re-creates the drama of nation-making and governing. Mr. Gutzman's narrative concentrates on Madison's maneuvering in Philadelphia at meetings of the Continental Congress and, later, at the constitutional convention. Mr. Gutzman meticulously recounts Madison's efforts to secure ratification of the Constitution in several recalcitrant states, working in concert with the redoubtable Alexander Hamilton, who later became an adversary not just of Madison but also of Jefferson."—The Wall Street Journal

"Gutzman’s meticulous disquisition on the proceedings of the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention ... will most profit scholars. His perspective on an important Founder, and his minute examination of the Federalist Papers, will ... appeal to serious readers."--Library Journal

"[A] groundbreaking work. More than merely the definitive biography on James Madison, Kevin Gutzman’s book is essential to understanding the men, ideas and historical context of the U.S. Constitution and the early American republic. If the founders are important, then James Madison and the Making of America is vital to understanding what they actually said and did."--The Washington Times

"This book is relatively thorough, covering the years leading up to the Revolution and especially focusing on the 1787 Philadelphia Convention, ratifying the Constitution, inaugurating the Constitution, and, finally, Madison's years as Secretary of State and President [and] Gutzman's style of writing is refreshingly sprite at times."--The Peorian

"A well-considered and written biography of this gifted Founding Father's many contributions to the early republic."--Kirkus

"Kevin R. C. Gutzman, relying for the most part on primary sources, gives us an authoritative, vivid and wide-ranging exploration of Madison’s public career in James Madison and the Making of America... a solid and insightful biography that should appeal to both those readers who know a lot about Madison and those who want an introduction to him."--BookPage

"With James Madison and the Making of America, Kevin Gutzman has raised a glorious standard to illustrate and illuminate the importance of Madison and why he may be unfairly overlooked and buried in the shadow of Jefferson. On the whole, [it] is an impressive book. Gutzman makes history easy to read and keeps the expected dry boredom of reliving the 1700s at bay, making them vibrant and exciting, as they no doubt were to the people who lived them. With this book, the foundations of America are laid open for examination, and the specific work Madison undertook to bring about the glorious new nation with a republican-style government gets the attention it properly deserves."--Book Reporter

"Kevin R. C. Gutzman ... has written a well-researched public life of Madison that draws heavily on the documentary record.  His ... discussions of Madison’s role in the Virginia Convention of 1776, where he argued for free exercise instead of mere toleration, his 1785 Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments, and his successful efforts to gain passage of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, are particularly acute, as is his judgment that the last mentioned was Madison’s 'greatest accomplishment' (p. 48)."--The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography

"...a fascinating account of Madison’s role in forming the institutions and the policies that characterize the United States of America."--City Book Review

"Gutzman’s day-by-day analysis of the debates and actions of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 is long—80 pages—but superb. He demonstrates Madison’s deep insight and great skill in first framing the task of the Convention, then, in responding to virtually every point raised by its members, guiding the debate to workable conclusions, and most remarkable of all, helping to fashion a document agreed to by “all states present.”... Later, in a well-informed analysis, Gutzman treats insightfully Madison’s contributions to The Federalist essays as a dialogue with increasingly effective Anti-Federalist articles, highlighting the basic issues of energetic government, insurance against tyranny, and meaningful representation.... Gutzman’s most thorough and penetrating analysis is of Madison’s premier role in the fateful discussion of the new constitution and its principles... His book is a signal contribution to our understanding of this near-miraculous epoch in our national history."--Ralph Ketcham, The American Conservative

"The serious reader who wants a detailed account of James Madison's long public career, drawn from primary sources, will find Kevin Gutzman's book deeply rewarding.  The author's treatments of Virginia's ratification convention and the drafting of the Bill of Rights are particularly valuable.”--Daniel Walker Howe, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848

“Writing with authority and verve, Kevin Gutzman merges James Madison the practical Virginia politician and James Madison the world-class political theorist in this well-rounded biography of one of the most remarkably multifaceted founders of the republic.”-- Jon Kukla, author of Mr. Jefferson’s Women and A Wilderness So Immense: The Louisiana Purchase and the Destiny of America

"Kevin Gutzman's beautifully written and insightful account of James Madison's fascinating life promises to become the standard biography of this great Founding Father."- Edward G. Lengel, Professor and Editor-in-Chief – The Papers of George Washington, University of Virginia and author of Inventing George Washington:  America's Founder, In Myth and Memory

"Focusing on the fourth president's public life, Kevin Gutzman's James Madison and the Making of America recaptures the drama and excitement of the new nation's bold experiment in republican self-government.  No one played a more important role than Madison in the drafting, ratification, and implementation of the federal Constitution.  The power of the great Virginian's penetrating intelligence is amply evident on every page of this nicely balanced, well-written, and lucidly argued study."-- Peter S. Onuf, Thomas Jefferson Foundation Professor of History, University of Virginia and author of Jefferson's Empire: The Language of American Nationhood

About the Author

Kevin R. C. Gutzman is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution, of Virginia's American Revolution, and (with Thomas E. Woods, Jr.) of Who Killed the Constitution? The Fate of American Liberty from World War I to George W. Bush. He is Professor of History at Western Connecticut State University and lives in Bethel, Connecticut.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; Book Club Edition edition (February 14, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312625006
• ISBN-13: 978-0312625009
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #61,044 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kevin Gutzman's latest book is JAMES MADISON AND THE MAKING OF AMERICA. The paperback edition, published in February 2013, includes a new introductory essay on "James Madison and the American Ideal of Religious Liberty." Gutzman is the author of four books -- two on the Constitution (including the New York Times best-selling THE POLITICALLY INCORRECT GUIDE TO THE CONSTITUTION) and two on the American Revolution and Early Republic.

Dr. Gutzman is Director of Graduate Studies and Professor in the Department of History at Western Connecticut State University. He received his BA, MPAff, and JD from the University of Texas and his MA and PhD in American history from the University of Virginia. For a full biography, sample writings, further information on his books, etc., see his Web site, www.KevinGutzman.com.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

56 of 63 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Definitive Biography February 29, 2012

By Thomas E. Woods Jr.

Format:Hardcover

Kevin Gutzman's James Madison and the Making of America takes what we thought was a familiar story and gives it a fresh and important interpretation that challenges old orthodoxies and helps us better understand important episodes in American history.

For instance, proper credit for the world-historic Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom is at last granted not to its draftsman, Thomas Jefferson - who had his gravestone list the statute along with the Declaration of Independence and the founding of the University of Virginia as his proudest achievements - but to James Madison, who actually managed to get the statute enacted (and who would have nothing inscribed on his gravestone).

More significantly, we are treated to a precise and detailed description of Madison's evolving role vis-a-vis the drafting of the Constitution. At the Philadelphia Convention Madison had championed a much stronger central government, a veto over state laws, and a diminished role and significance of the states. He favored a national rather than a federal government, and one in which the states would be retained insofar as they might be "subordinately useful." His major proposals, including the veto of state laws, a legislature with plenary authority, and basing both legislative houses on population, were all rejected.

Madison may be known as the father of the Constitution, but Gutzman is having none of it. "Far from being the `father of the Constitution,' Madison was an unhappy witness at its C-section birth. Perhaps he might be more appropriately called an attending nurse. He certainly did not think of it as his own offspring."

What emerged from the Philadelphia Convention was a federal government with enumerated powers, not a national government with plenary authority.

At that point there were two ways forward for the nationalists. One way was the approach of figures like Alexander Hamilton and John Marshall, who simply spoke and acted as if the federal Constitution drawn up in Philadelphia had been the nationalist creation with broad powers they favored rather than the limited, federal structure it turned out to be.

Marshall, for instance, would later make much of the fact that the Constitution nowhere said that the federal government possessed only the powers "expressly delegated" to it; the word "expressly" is not used, he said. But Marshall knew better. He was present at the Richmond Ratification Convention, where people were assured that the Constitution they were being urged to ratify would indeed grant the federal government only the powers "expressly delegated" by that instrument.

Madison took a more honest route. Although he preferred a national government, he acknowledged that such a thing was neither what had been drafted in Philadelphia nor what the people ratified in the conventions that followed. So he defended not what he wished had been ratified, but what had actually been ratified.

Already in the early 1790s Madison found himself in opposition to those who acted as if the federal government had been granted powers it surely had not been granted. He spoke out against the incorporation of a national bank and in opposition to Alexander Hamilton's use of the Constitution's "necessary and proper" clause in support of that bill. When Hamilton and his allies tried, in defiance of universal practice both in the United States and elsewhere, to derive powers from the Constitution's preamble, Madison reminded them that preambles merely state the ends of a document and do not assign powers.

Madison likewise opposed John Marshall's seminal decision in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), which echoed the arguments of Alexander Hamilton for broad federal powers. The Supreme Court, warned Madison, had thereby given Congress power "to which no practical limit can be assigned." The Court's reasoning stood in defiance of the understanding by which Virginia had ratified the Constitution in 1788.

Gutzman's important account of Virginia's ratifying convention, heretofore confined to the professional journals, makes its first appearance in a scholarly book. The accepted version of American history holds that the doctrines of nullification and secession were the product of an extreme Antifederalist reading of the American political tradition. Gutzman shows that this rendering has things backward. It was supporters of the Constitution, eminent Federalists themselves, who in seeking to persuade skeptics to ratify, spelled out the limited nature of the federal government and the true meaning of ratification for Virginians. Virginia would be "exonerated" from the imposition of "any supplementary condition" upon them - i.e., the exercise of a federal power Virginia did not grant.

It was this Virginia understanding of the meaning of ratification that Madison defended in the famous Virginia Resolutions of 1798 and the follow-up Report of 1800, where the states as the parties to the federal compact were said to possess the sovereign right in the last resort to prevent the enforcement of an unconstitutional federal law. (Gutzman is unconvinced by Madison's later claims that he had never endorsed any such principle; Madison in retirement simply "mischaracterize[d]" the Principles of '98, Gutzman says.)

Although Gutzman provides some important and useful analysis of the better known entries of The Federalist that were drafted by Madison, he also contends that those articles by Publius (the pseudonym under which Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay wrote their 85 articles in support of the Constitution) have been overemphasized by historians in relation to their actual effect in the ratification struggle. Hardly anyone outside the range of the New York newspapers in which those essays appeared ever heard their arguments. By the time New York's ratification convention met, ten states had already ratified. New York had to decide whether it wanted to join North Carolina and Rhode Island as the only two states remaining outside the Union, and also faced the prospect of a secessionist New York City withdrawing from the rest of the state and ratifying the Constitution on its own. That, and not the arguments of those 85 essays, is what persuaded New York's convention to ratify, by a tiny margin.

Edward Lengel, editor of The Papers of George Washington contends that James Madison and the Making of America, the featured selection of the History Book Club for February 2012, promises to become the standard biography of this important man. Let's hope it does.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Premier Biography of James Madison Ever Written March 8, 2012

By Carl Jones

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I've read most of the books written by Dr. Kevin Gutzman, all of which I have found enlightening, well researched, enjoyable and brilliantly written. I must say though that in a growing list of outstanding contributions to the topic of American history, James Madison and the Making of America is without question this author's crowning achievement.

I've personally been a student of the Founding era for quite a few years now, during which time Madison has been something of an enigma to me. The same James Madison who argued vehemently for Federal veto power of State laws during the Philadelphia Convention and beyond, would later pen the Virginia Resolution which effectively birthed the concept of "nullification" of FEDERAL actions by the STATES. What are we to take from this one example?

History to this point has painted Madison as brilliant while often ambiguous and at times perhaps even duplicitous. Yet, the reader will discern a transformation taking place in Madison, as his story progresses through recorded history, that most other literary offerings fail to detect. I will not give all of the details away here, but suffice to say that Gutzman provides something that American history has lacked for decades with regards to James Madison- a fresh, objective, fair, honest and painstakingly detailed approach to the man, his philosophy and his immense contributions to the "Making of America."

While by no means is this book an attempt at canonizing Madison the man, it allows the reader to digest the plain facts as they are. From his early years, through the Philadelphia convention, to his writings within The Federalist, the Virginia Ratifying Convention and beyond, the author leaves no stones unturned.

I believe that this book will prove to be the quintessential biography on James Madison. It is a must read for all who wish to gain an honest and thorough understanding of this man, Patriot and Founding Father. Five Stars.

26 of 30 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Madison; warts and all February 27, 2012

By Efrem Sepulveda

Format:Hardcover

This review is from: James Madison and the Making of America (Hardcover)
Open disclosure here. I have been a Facebook friend of Dr. Gutzman's for quite some time and have appreciated his insight on issues dealing with the legal history of the United States. I have waited to read this volume on Madison for quite some time and to read an in depth biography of one of the Founding Fathers (of which there were many despite statements from historians to the contrary). In fact, this is the first substantive biography that I have read from that era in America's history.

The biography of James Madison traces his life from his birth in 1751 to his college days at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton), through his political career to his demise at Montpelier in 1836. With his death, it brought to an end the life the last of those who attended most of the major events during the time of the War of Independence and shortly thereafter. I shall not try to parrot the words of others that have reviewed the book already. What I shall do now is to make some general comments on the text of the book as I read them.

Madison understood from the teachings of John Witherspoon that men were not to be trusted and were corrupt. Through Whitherspoon, Madison understood and embraced the tenets of the Scottish Enlightenment that men could be entrusted to make political decisions that heretofore would only have been entrusted to aristocrats, hence his admiration of Jeffersonian republicanism. Unlike Witherspoon, Madison thought that government sanction of religion was counterproductive to the health of the state. Madison was of the belief that showing preference to one religion sect would be detrimental to the others. He also believed that the presence of a state church would result in certain corruption of the church. As we have seen in Europe, the impotence of state churches today confirms Madison's foresight on this.

The debates at the Philadelphia Convention were full of struggles and disputes among the delegates and with Madison, it was no different. The major disappointment that he took way from the convention was that his proposal of Congress overriding state laws was not included in the final proposed constitution. Nevertheless, during the ratification process, Madison put forth a herculean effort to get his home state and New York to ratify the Constitution through the writing of various letters known collectively today as The Federalist Papers. Madison sought to calm the fears of opponents such as Patrick Henry by stating that the federal powers of lawmaking would only be contained in certain specifically delegated sections in Article I, Section 8 and that general government would not be too powerful and centralized. from what we have seen today, it was Henry who would have been vindicated on this issue of federal powers and would blast the current government had he been alive today.

Madison during his days in Congress and during the Presidency was inconsistent in his constitutional principles most notably during the chartering of the Bank of the United States and his stands on internal improvements and trade overseas. He was rash in his declaration of war on Britain during the War of 1812, a conflict that our country was unprepared for. The section that I found very informative was his commentaries on various subjects later in life. They included his commentary on the Missouri Compromise (he thought it to be unconstitutional), the decision of McCollouch v. Maryland (he did not like it and said that the decision "betrayed the people") and the nullification crisis in South Carolina in 1832-1833 (he thought that the Palmetto State went too far and that its reasoning for nullification of federal law did not meet the criteria set forth in his Virginia Resolution of 1798).

It was a very informative book and that with the explosion of the size of government, we should heed the wisdom of Madison as stated in Federalist No. 45. I recommend this book. Five stars.