Volume 42, Number 16 · October 19, 1995
The Founding Realist
By Gordon S. Wood
If Men Were Angels: James Madison and the Heartless Empire of Reason
by Richard K. Matthews
University Press of Kansas, 297 pp., $25.00
Poor James Madison! Think of who he was and what he achieved. The major architect of the Constitution; the father of the Bill of Rights and one of the strongest proponents of the rights of conscience and religious liberty in American history; co-author of The Federalist, surely the most significant work of political theory in American history; the leader and most important member of the first House of Representatives in 1789; co-founder of the Democratic-Republican party in the 1790s; secretary of state in Jefferson's administration; and the fourth president of the United States—all this, and still he does not have the popular standing of the other founding fathers, especially that of his closest friend, Thomas Jefferson.
Review, 3886 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |