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tions may have been hard to hear, but they carried the day against the impetuous orations of the famed Henry.
Henry did not forget; a year later he blocked Madison’s nomination to the first Senate. The move merely added more laurels to the Virginian’s wreath. He ran for the House and won, largely upon his promises to add a bill of rights to the Constitution. The new Congressman speedily distilled the hundred-plus proposals for a bill of rights into a convenient package of amendments, introduced it, and forced a largely reluctant House to vote on it.
Madison went on to serve two terms in the House, playing a vital role in the formation of the Democratic-Republican party that swept his friend Jefferson into power. He then served eight years as Secretary of State, and in 1809 was elected the fourth President of the United States. For most Americans, service as the Chief Executive would be the apogee of a lifetime; for Madison, it was almost an anticlimax. Two decades later, approaching 80, the still vigorous Madison was taking part in a second state Constitutional Convention, and writing rebuttals to the nullification movement!
Perhaps our failure to recognize March 16 is characteristic of Madison’s own temperament; he accomplished much, but without flamboyance or spectacle. All the same, the Republic could do far worse than to recognize the day the Father of our Constitution entered the world.
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