Answer:
James Madison was the 4th President of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Madison was born into an upper-class family in Virginia, where the family owned a tobacco plantation. He studied Greek and Latin at Princeton University and was simultaneously inspired by the European Enlightenment philosophers, which gave him his liberal ideology.
Madison became entangled in the independence movement and embarked on a political career. He was one of the main forces behind the US Constitution of 1787, which is based, among other things, on Montesquieu's ideas about the threefold division of power. In the debate on the Constitution, Madison was largely on the federalist side, while Thomas Jefferson was more pragmatic. Today, Madison is considered a great constitutional theorist.
In 1789 he was elected to the House of Representatives, and in 1801 he became Secretary of State. Before becoming president, he was involved in drafting the Bill of Rights in 1791.
As president, Madison largely continued Jefferson's political line. In 1812, however, he was forced to declare war on Britain - partly due to pressure from the hinterland. Three years later, peace was made in Ghent without the Americans or the British achieving anything special.
