History Lesson

We all know about Pres. Abraham Lincoln and more than enough about Trump, but we don’t know a lot about Pres. James Madison, other than he was 5’ 4” tall, which was probably average height for a man back in 1809. He’s known as the “Father of the Constitution” and “Father of the Bill of Rights,” and owned over 100 slaves. Wait, what? A hundred slaves? He was probably father to more than the Constitution and Bill of Rights. If you know anything about the country’s most popular advanced American history class, “Hamilton: An American Musical,” you know that Madison collaborated with Alexander Hamilton to write the Federalist Papers and he could rap hip-hop with the best of them. Madison was Jefferson’s Secretary of State and supervised the Louisiana Purchase because he had a thing for gumbo and fresh beignets. He succeeded Jefferson as president, served two terms and led the country into the War of 1812; not a good move, but it did bring us the “Star Spangled Banner.” When Madison took office, he decreed that it was the federal government’s duty to convert the Indians to a “civilized state,” much the way Mike Pence wants to convert homosexuals today. Madison was the last of the founding fathers to die and it’s rumored that his widow, Dolley, married a 6’ 7” Washington Wizards point guard.