James Madison Appreciation Day
WHEREAS, James Madison, Jr. was born on March 16, 1751 at Port Conway in King George County, Virginia, to James Madison, Sr. and Eleanor Conway at the Conway home. Both he and his father were named for his maternal Great, Grandfather, Col. James Taylor II, who provided land for his daughter, Frances Taylor, upon her marriage to Ambrose Madison, in Orange County. Col. Taylor was the Surveyor General for the Virginia Royal Colony under Lt. Alexander Spotswood, and became the first settler of Orange, County; and
WHEREAS, he was brought up in and remained a life time resident of Orange County first at “Mount Pleasant,” later to become known as “Montpelier”, home of his parents and grandparents, where he was home schooled by his mother and grandmother and later, under the influence of his tutor, attended King’s College of New Jersey, now Princeton University, and upon graduation became the first graduate student studying Hebrew, Latin and Religion for an additional year with The Reverend John Witherspoon and, thereafter, by personal lineage, legacy and experience, remained actively committed throughout his life to freedom of faith and conscience for all people; and
WHEREAS, he was a devoted student of history, government, and well read in the law, he participated in the framing of Virginia’s original Bill of Religious Freedom and it’s Constitution in 1776, served with distinction in the Continental Congress, and was a leader in the Virginia General Assembly; and
WHEREAS, the Constitution of the United States, first adopted in 1787, and designed under the guidance of the 36 year old Madison, the first to arrive in Philadelphia three months before the Convention began, bearing a blue print for the new Constitution, he thereafter, took an emphatic leadership role among the delegates in the debates and made detailed notes of the proceedings; and
WHEREAS, he later made a major contribution to the ratification process of the United States Constitution by authoring the Federalist Papers with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay; and
WHEREAS, in the United States Congress, he helped to frame the “Bill of Rights” in 1789 protecting and guaranteeing the rights and freedoms of individual citizens; and
WHEREAS, he served the Commonwealth and his nation as consultant and advisor to President George Washington, as Secretary of State in Thomas Jefferson’s Cabinet, was twice elected to serve as President of the United States and successfully prosecuted the War of 1812, now commonly recognized as “America’s Second War of Independence;” and
WHEREAS, in 1829 and 1830, he served in the Convention that revised Virginia’s Constitution, and in retirement years at “Montpelier”, with his beloved wife, Dolley Payne Todd Madison, he spoke out against the radical States Rights influences that threatened to shatter the Federal Union in the 1830’s, and in a note opened after his death in 1836 said, “The advice nearest to my heart and deepest in my convictions is that the Union of the States be cherished and perpetuated” and
WHEREAS, his contributions acknowledged by his contemporary compatriots, and a grateful nation since, have named him to be “The Father of the Constitution,” which remains the supreme law of our land, and the oldest and today, with only 4,440 words, the shortest Constitution of any government in the world, and,
NOW, THEREFORE, I, Robert F. McDonnell, do hereby recognize March 16, 2010 as JAMES MADISON APPRECIATION DAY in the COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA, and I call this observance to the attention of all our citizens.