James Madison, 4th American President, plays a leading role in Blow Out the Light. I first encountered serious American history in my second year of college. California State University, East Bay offered a two semester American History class. The main text for this two-part class was the almost 700 page “Notes Of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 Reported by James Madison.” Madison came to be known as the “Father of the Constitution” for the leadership role he took at the Convention. He worked hard to prepare himself. This included contacting his friend and fellow Virginian Thomas Jefferson, who was serving as the American Minister to France, and asking him for a recommendation of the books he should read to prepare himself. Jefferson not only recommended dozens of books, but also shipped many of them to Madison from Europe. This helped to make Madison the best prepared attendee at the Convention, as well as helping him with future tasks including writing Federalist Papers and the Bill of Rights. At the time of events in Blow Out the Light, Madison is serving as a Representative for the state of Virginia at the new Federal Congress in New York. There, he will also write the first speech delivered by President George Washington. As a leader in the House of Representatives, Madison focused on the issues of the day. These included how to pay off the war debt which pitted states that had paid their debt against those who had not, finding the best location for a new federal capital city, and the ongoing challenge of slavery. If you’d like to learn more about James Madison, you can visit Montpelier, Madison’s lifetime residence. Montpelier is about 35 miles from Richmond, Virginia. Contact Montpelier: Online at Montpelier.org, and by phone at (540)672-2728 x460.
Could Slavery Have Been Abolished by the New Federal Congress?
When in 1789 the first Federal Congress was called to order, slavery was not supposed to have been on the agenda. James Madison, “Father of the Constitution,” had worked hard to keep this divisive issue out of sight. One Madison compromise was passing the constitution with a provision barring Congress from regulating the slave trade for 20 years, until 1808.
Imagine the surprise of most members of Congress when groups of abolitionists submitted petitions calling on them to address the issue of slavery. Most of these petitions were submitted by Quaker organizations who argued that regulating the slave trade was different than abolishing it.
Benjamin Franklin, who was a “Founding Father” for his service on the 1787 Constitutional Convention, served as the President of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery. In 1790, he presented a formal abolition petition to Congress.
Other groups, many associated with the Quakers, also presented petitions to the new Congress.
The possibility that the Congress might take on the cause of slavery evoked strong responses from Southern representatives1…
Mr. Tucker, South Carolina:
“Do these men expect a general emancipation of slaves by law? This would never be submitted to by the southern states without a civil war.”
“If judge was to assert such doctrine his existence would not be long. It would blow the trumpet of civil war.”
Mr. George Jackson, Georgia:
“The master has a property over his servant the same as over his slave. Whether religion sanctifies slavery will not to pretend. If these good people would search out Bible in Genesis, slavery was from the original.”
1Documentary History of the First Federal Congress, 1789-1791. Vol. XII: Debates in
the House of Representatives: Second Session, January-March 1790. edited by Helen E. Veit, Charlene Bangs Bickford, Kenneth R. Bowling, and William Charles Di’Giacomantonio. (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994): 296, 306, 308.
The Father of our Constitution … Disabled?
When we think of James Madison, three things immediately come to mind. First, he was the Father of the United States Constitution. Second, he was the author of the Bill of Rights. Third, he was an intellectual giant. What is not well known, however, (except among scholars) is that he was also disabled.
Of himself, Madison wrote he had:
a constitutional tendency to sudden attacks somewhat resembling epilepsy which suspended all intellectual function…. They continued throughout my life with prolonged intensity.
His brother-in-law described his condition as a:
constitutional liability to sudden attacks… of a character and effect which suspended his powers of action.
In 1775, at the age of 24, Madison suffered one of his “attacks” while training with the colonial militia in Virginia. He was sent home and prevented from serving during the Revolutionary War. It seems his disability saved him for a higher calling.
The nature of his medical condition has long been a subject of debate amongst scholars and medical practitioners. Some believe he suffered “epileptoid hysteria,” a psychological condition; however, the general consensus is that he was an epileptic who suffered partial complex or petit mal seizures.
Disability does not always mean impairment. There is a very long list of epileptics who changed the course of human history, including: Sir Isaac Newton, Napoleon Bonaparte, Harriet Tubman, Leo Tolstoy, Agatha Christie, Ludwig von Beethoven and Socrates.
The Father of the United States Constitution was brilliant and disabled. Or, perhaps James Madison was able to conceive the foundations of the greatest nation on Earth because he was disabled. That’s something to keep in mind…