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President John Adams

Born: March 16, 1751 Died: June 28, 1836 Political Party: Democratic- Republican Terms: 2 (1809-1812, 1813-1817) Vice President: George Clinton (1809-1812), Elbridge Gerry (1813-1814) both died in office, None (1814-1817)

The man known to many as “The Father of the Constitution” became the Fourth President of the United States on March 4, 1809. President James Madison had to deal with many issues that were previously installed coming into his presidency and he didn’t really help to improve the situation much. Over the course of his two terms, he neither improved the situation nor made it much worse. Due this contradiction, he deserves a B- for his presidency.

Madison’s goals in office were to maintain foreign affairs with Britain and France. He fulfilled this goal somewhat successfully. Although when he entered his presidency he had no control of the previous occurrence with France and Britain in the Embargo Act, this Act definitely put a dampening on his ability to fulfill his goal. He slightly improved the situation by replacing the Embargo Act with the Non-Intercourse Act in 1809 (which lifted the restriction on foreign trade with all counties except Britain and France) and later Macon’s Bill No. 2 in 1810 (which reopened trade with all of the world). Once again America’s positioning on foreign trade faltered when Napoleon sneakily persuaded Madison to limit trade with only Britain when the Brits did not lift their Orders in Council. This eventually led all America into the unavoidable, War of 1812 (The Second War for Independence). Overall Madison partially fulfilled his goals and led him to an imperfect grade of a B-.

Madison had merely a mediocre relationship with Congress. Although his political party (The Democratic- Republicans) clearly dominated the House and Senate all throughout both of his terms as president and they obliged when he asked them to declare war in 1812 in both the House (with a 79-49 vote) and in the Senate (with a 19-13 vote), they disagreed with him often as well. Unlike Jefferson, he was somewhat soft-spoken and did not exert power over Congress. He also vetoed the most bills of all the presidents that had preceded him, vetoing seven bills. Congress passes bills that Madison disagreed with, and therefore vetoed, because he believed they had “violated” the First Amendment to the Constitution. Therefore, Madison did not have a positive relationship with Congress by it was also not a purely negative one.

The War of 1812 was both a positive and negative happening during Madison’s Presidency. It initially had gained him popularity from the majority war hawks and Democratic-Republicans in the United States at the time. After what had happened in America with the Embargo Act, Non-Intercourse Act, and Macon’s Bill No. 2 war with Britain became inevitable. Although many people of the Federalist Party believed that Madison had simply fallen into the pressure from the war-hawks, there was really no way of avoiding this issue of war. A huge negative of the war was the beginning when we only had a young and slightly un-trained army so many American men were slaughtered by the initially over-powering British. Also, one result from the war was the burning down of Washington by the British. They burned the White House and the Capital in particular. Some positive results from the War of 1812 were for one the gained respect for America across the world. Also, the American’s won a few very historic and important battles such as the Battle of Tippecanoe against Tecumseh and the Indians. After the war America had once and for all gained independence from Britain. Another positive that resulted from Madison’s presidency was the establishment of Louisiana and Indiana. There were many positive and negative outcomes throughout Madison’s presidency and many of them are presented through War of 1812. None of these were neither outstanding, nor devastating to the United States during Madison’s presidency and therefore add to his overall grade of a B-.

An outcome of Madison’s time in office that influenced the lives of others in future generations is the complete elimination of the Federalist Political Party during his presidency. During the War of 1812, after the defeat at New Orleans, there was an up roaring revival of nationalism and the people in New England, who were primarily Federalists and who had opposed war, were so thoroughly repudiated that Federalism literally disappeared as a national party. This was a major outcome of his presidency that impacted the lives of people in future generations.

The country was only slightly better off after Madison’s two terms as president. He did not make any ground breaking new contributions to the country, yet he held it together in a somewhat critical time for the still developing nation. He did get us out the potentially fateful event of the war of 1812 with none other than a draw, but he could have done it in a more effective fashion. He did not make any leeway with the nation but rather held it in place. Therefore he deserves the grade of a B- overall.

Works Cited "American President: James Madison: A Life in Brief." //Miller Center of Public Affairs//. Web. 24 Sept. 2009. . "A Baby's First Steps: Conclusion." //QuestGarden.com//. Web. 24 Sept. 2009. . Bailey, Thomas A. //The American Pageant//. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2002. Print. DeGregorio, William A. //The Complete Book of US Presidents//. Fort Lee: Barricade Books, 2009. Print. "OCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"Biography of James Madison."// OCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"Welcome to the White House//. Web. 24 Sept. 2009. . "Why did James Madison face difficulties with a Congress domina...: Information from Answers.com." //Answers.com - Online Dictionary, Encyclopedia and much more//. Web. 24 Sept. 2009. .