Originally published on November 18, 2021 (Episode 235)
Introduction
If there’s one thing Americans know about James Madison, it might be that he was the shortest American president—just 5’4”—or that he was married to Dolley Madison, remembered as both a formidable hostess and, in popular imagination, the creator of a line of highly processed snack cakes. A little more knowledge brings contradictions: the “Father of the Constitution” and co-author of The Federalist Papers who also penned the dangerous doctrine of nullification; both friend and rival of Alexander Hamilton; the masterful politician who as president, presided over the half-baked disaster of the War of 1812 and seems now to have been a presidential failure.
As Jay Cost makes clear in James Madison: America’s First Politician, Madison cannot be understood apart from the political culture he helped invent. Cost shows us how Madison’s vision of politics—its possibilities, its limits, and its dangers—still shapes America today.
About the Guest
Jay Cost is the Gerald R. Ford Nonresidential Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of several studies of American political life, including A Republic No More: Big Government and the Rise of American Political Corruption.
For Further Investigation
Jay Cost, James Madison: America’s First Politician (Basic Books, 2021)
Jack Rakove, James Madison and the Creation of the American Republic (Pearson, 2007)
Richard Brookhiser, James Madison (Basic Books, 2011)
Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789–1815 (Oxford University Press, 2009)
💬 Listen & Discuss
Madison helped invent American politics—and may also embody its contradictions. Do you see him more as the architect of liberty or the instigator of partisanship? Share your thoughts in the comments below—and pass this episode along to someone who only knows Madison from trivia-night facts.
