title: Paul Allen

text: Allen's yacht, , was launched in 2003. As of 2019, it was 20th on the list of motor yachts by length. The yacht is equipped with two helicopters, a submarine, an ROV, a swimming pool, a music studio and a basketball court. "Octopus" is a member of AMVER, a voluntary group ship reporting system used worldwide by authorities to arrange assistance for those in distress at sea. The ship is also known for its annual celebrity-studded parties which Allen hosted at the Cannes film festival, where Allen and his band played for guests. These performances included musicians such as Usher and Dave Stewart. "Octopus" was also used in the search for a missing American pilot and two officers whose plane disappeared off Palau, and the study of a rare fish called a coelacanth, among many others. Following Allen's death in 2018, "Octopus" was refitted and put on the market for $325 million.


title: Paul Allen

text: Allen also owned , one of the world's 100 largest yachts. In January 2016, it was reported that "Tatoosh" allegedly damaged coral in the Cayman Islands. In April 2016, the Department of Environment (DoE) and Allen's Vulcan Inc. successfully completed a restoration plan to help speed recovery and protect the future of coral in this area.


title: Paul Allen

text: In 2011, Allen's memoir, "", was published by Portfolio, a Penguin Group imprint. The book recounts how Allen became enamored with computers at an early age, conceived the idea for Microsoft, recruited his friend Bill Gates to join him, and launched what would become the world's most successful software company. It also explores Allen's business and creative ventures following his 1983 departure from Microsoft, including his involvement in SpaceShipOne, his purchase of the Portland Trail Blazers and Seattle Seahawks, his passion for music, and his ongoing support for scientific research. The book made the "New York Times" Best Seller list. A paperback version, which included a new epilogue, was published on October30, 2012.


title: Paul Allen

text: Allen was diagnosed with Stage 1-A Hodgkin's lymphoma in 1982. His cancer was successfully treated by several months of radiation therapy, Allen was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2009. Likewise, the cancer was successfully treated until it returned in 2018. It ultimately caused his death by septic shock on October 15, 2018. He was 65 years old.


title: Paul Allen

text: Following his death, Allen's sister Jody Allen was named executor and trustee of all of Paul Allen's estate, pursuant to his instructions. She had responsibility for overseeing the execution of his will and settling his affairs with tax authorities and parties with an interest in his projects.


title: Paul Allen

text: Several Seattle-area landmarks, including the Space Needle, Columbia Center and Lumen Field, as well as various Microsoft offices throughout the United States, were illuminated in blue on November 3, 2018, as a tribute to Allen. He was also honored by his early business partner and lifelong friend Bill Gates, who said in a statement:


title: Paul Allen

text: Allen received numerous awards in many different areas, including sports, technology, philanthropy, and the arts:


title: James Madison

text: James Madison Jr. (March 16, 1751June 28, 1836) was an American statesman, diplomat, and Founding Father. He served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Madison is hailed as the "Father of the Constitution" for his pivotal role in drafting and promoting the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights.


title: James Madison

text: Madison was born into a prominent planter and enslaver family in Virginia. He served as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates and the Continental Congress during and after the American Revolutionary War. Unsatisfied with the weak national government established by the Articles of Confederation, he helped organize the Constitutional Convention, which produced a new constitution. Madison's Virginia Plan was the basis for the Convention's deliberations, and he was an influential voice at the convention. He became one of the leaders in the movement to ratify the Constitution, and joined Alexander Hamilton and John Jay in writing "The Federalist Papers", a series of pro-ratification essays which remains prominent among works of political science in American history. Madison emerged as an important leader in the House of Representatives and was a close adviser to President George Washington.


title: James Madison

text: During the early 1790s, Madison opposed the economic program and the accompanying centralization of power favored by Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton. Alongside Thomas Jefferson, he organized the Democratic–Republican Party in opposition to Hamilton's Federalist Party. After Jefferson was elected president in 1800, Madison served as his Secretary of State from 1801 to 1809. While Madison was Secretary of State, Jefferson made the Louisiana Purchase, and later, as President, Madison oversaw related disputes in the Northwest territories. Madison was elected president in 1808. Motivated by the desire for acquiring land held by Britain, Spain, and Native Americans, and after diplomatic protests with a trade embargo failed to end British seizures of American shipped goods, he led the United States into the War of 1812. The war was an administrative morass and ended inconclusively, but many Americans saw it as a successful "second war of independence" against Britain. Madison was re-elected in 1812, albeit by a smaller margin. The war convinced Madison of the necessity of a stronger federal government. He presided over the creation of the Second Bank of the United States and the enactment of the protective Tariff of 1816. By treaty or through war, Native American tribes ceded of land to the United States under Madison's presidency. Retiring from public office at the end of his presidency in 1817, Madison returned to his plantation, Montpelier, and died there in 1836.


title: James Madison

text: Like Jefferson and Washington, Madison was a wealthy enslaver. He never freed any of the people he enslaved, either during his lifetime or in his will.


title: James Madison

text: Among historians and in polls of leading historians, Madison is considered one of the most important Founding Fathers of the United States, and these historians have generally ranked him as an above-average president, although they are critical of how Madison executed the War of 1812. Madison's name is commemorated in many landmarks across the nation, both publicly and privately, with prominent examples including Madison Square Garden, James Madison University, and the USS "James Madison".


title: James Madison

text: James Madison Jr. was born on March 16, 1751 (March 5, 1750, Old Style), at Belle Grove Plantation near Port Conway in the Colony of Virginia, to James Madison Sr. and Nelly Conway Madison. His family had lived in Virginia since the mid-17th century. Madison's maternal grandfather was a prominent planter and tobacco merchant. His father was a tobacco planter who grew up on a plantation, then called Mount Pleasant, which he had inherited upon reaching adulthood. With an estimated 100 slaves and a plantation, Madison's father was among the largest landowners in the Virginia Piedmont. In the early 1760s, the Madison family moved into a newly built house that they named Montpelier. Madison grew up as the oldest of twelve children, with seven brothers and four sisters, though only six lived to adulthood. Of the surviving three brothers (Francis, Ambrose, and William) and three sisters (Nelly, Sarah, and Frances), it was Ambrose who would eventually help to manage Montpelier for both his father and older brother until his own death in 1793.


title: James Madison

text: From age 11 to 16, Madison studied under Donald Robertson, a Scottish instructor who served as a tutor for several prominent planter families in the South. Madison learned mathematics, geography, and modern and classical languages, becoming exceptionally proficient in Latin. At age 16, Madison returned to Montpelier, where he studied under the Reverend Thomas Martin to prepare for college. Unlike most college-bound Virginians of his day, Madison did not attend the College of William and Mary, where the lowland Williamsburg climate—thought to be more likely to harbor infectious disease—might have strained his sensibilities concerning his own health. Instead, in 1769, he enrolled at the College of New Jersey (later renamed Princeton University).


title: James Madison

text: His college studies included Latin, Greek, theology, and the works of the Enlightenment. Emphasis was placed on both speech and debate; Madison was a leading member of the American Whig–Cliosophic Society, which competed on campus with a political counterpart, the Cliosophic Society. During his time at Princeton, Madison's closest friend was future Attorney General William Bradford. Along with another classmate, Madison undertook an intense program of study and completed the college's three-year Bachelor of Arts degree in two years, graduating in 1771. Madison had contemplated either entering the clergy or practicing law after graduation, but instead remained at Princeton to study Hebrew and political philosophy under the college's president, John Witherspoon. He returned home to Montpelier in early 1772.


title: James Madison

text: Madison's ideas on philosophy and morality were strongly shaped by Witherspoon, who converted him to the philosophy, values, and modes of thinking of the Age of Enlightenment. Biographer Terence Ball wrote that at Princeton, Madison "was immersed in the liberalism of the Enlightenment, and converted to eighteenth-century political radicalism. From then on James Madison's theories would advance the rights of happiness of man, and his most active efforts would serve devotedly the cause of civil and political liberty."


title: James Madison

text: After returning to Montpelier, without a chosen career, Madison served as a tutor to his younger siblings. Madison began to study law books in 1773, asking his friend Bradford, a law apprentice, to send him a written plan of study. He had acquired an understanding of legal publications by 1783. Madison saw himself as a law student but not a lawyer; he did not apprentice himself to a lawyer, and never joined the bar. Following the Revolutionary War, Madison spent time at Montpelier in Virginia studying ancient democracies of the world in preparation for the Constitutional Convention. Upon reaching adulthood, Madison was diminutive in physical stature only weighing about and in height. He had blue eyes and could be congenial in small gatherings. Madison suffered from episodes of mental exhaustion and illness with associated nervousness, which often caused temporary short-term incapacity after periods of stress. However, Madison enjoyed good physical health until his final years.


title: James Madison

text: In 1765, the British Parliament passed the Stamp Act, which caused strong opposition by the American colonists and began a conflict that would culminate in the American Revolution. The American Revolutionary War broke out in 1775 and would last till 1783. The colonists formed three prominent factions: Loyalists, who continued to back King George III of the United Kingdom; a significant neutral faction without firm commitments to either Loyalists or Patriots; and the Patriots, whom Madison joined, under the leadership of the Continental Congress. Madison believed that Parliament had overstepped its bounds by attempting to tax the American colonies, and he sympathized with those who resisted British rule. Historically, debate about the consecration of bishops was ongoing and eventual legislation was passed in the British Parliament (subsequently called the Consecration of Bishops Abroad Act 1786) to allow bishops to be consecrated for an American church outside of allegiance to the British Crown. Both in the United States and in Canada, the new Anglican churches began incorporating more active forms of polity in their own self-government, collective decision-making, and self-supported financing; these measures would be consistent with separation of religious and secular identities. Madison believed these measures to be insufficient, however, and he also favored disestablishing the Anglican Church in Virginia; Madison believed that tolerance of an established religion was detrimental not only to freedom of religion but also because it encouraged excessive deference to any authority which might be asserted by an established church.


title: James Madison

text: After returning to Montpelier in 1774, Madison took a seat on the local Committee of Safety, a pro-revolution group that oversaw the local Patriot militia. In October 1775, he was commissioned as the colonel of the Orange County militia, serving as his father's second-in-command until he was elected as a delegate to the Fifth Virginia Convention, which was charged with producing Virginia's first constitution. Although Madison never saw battle in the Revolutionary War, he did rise to prominence in Virginia politics as a wartime leader. At the Virginia constitutional convention, he convinced delegates to alter the Virginia Declaration of Rights originally drafted on May 20, 1776 to provide for "equal entitlement", rather than mere "tolerance", in the exercise of religion. With the enactment of the Virginia constitution, Madison became part of the Virginia House of Delegates, and he was subsequently elected to the Virginia governor's Council of State, where he became a close ally of Governor Thomas Jefferson. On July 4, 1776, the United States Declaration of Independence was formally printed, declaring the 13 American states an independent nation.


title: James Madison

text: Madison participated in the debates concerning the Articles of Confederation in November 1777, contributing to the discussion of religious freedom affecting the drafting of the Articles, though his signature was not required for adopting the Articles of Confederation. Madison had proposed liberalizing the article on religious freedom, but the larger Virginia Convention stripped the proposed constitution of the more radical language of "free expression" of faith to the less controversial mention of highlighting "tolerance" within religion. Other amendments by the committee and the entire Convention included the addition of a section on the right to a uniform government. Madison again served on the Council of State, from 1777 to 1779, when he was elected to the Second Continental Congress, the governing body of the United States.


title: James Madison

text: During Madison's term in Congress from 1780 to 1783, the U.S. faced a difficult war against Great Britain, as well as runaway inflation, financial troubles, and lack of cooperation between the different levels of government. According to historian J. C. A. Stagg, Madison worked to become an expert on financial issues, becoming a legislative workhorse and a master of parliamentary coalition building. Frustrated by the failure of the states to supply needed requisitions, Madison proposed to amend the Articles of Confederation to grant Congress the power to independently raise revenue through tariffs on imports. Though General George Washington, Congressman Alexander Hamilton, and other leaders also favored the tariff amendment, it was defeated because it failed to win the ratification of all thirteen states. While a member of Congress, Madison was an ardent supporter of a close alliance between the United States and France. As an advocate of westward expansion, he insisted that the new nation had to ensure its right to navigation on the Mississippi River and control of all lands east of it in the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War. Following his term in Congress, Madison won election to the Virginia House of Delegates in 1784.


title: James Madison

text: As a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, Madison continued to advocate for religious freedom, and, along with Jefferson, drafted the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. That amendment, which guaranteed freedom of religion and disestablished the Church of England, was passed in 1786. Madison also became a land speculator, purchasing land along the Mohawk River in partnership with another Jefferson protégé, James Monroe. Throughout the 1780s, Madison became increasingly worried about the disunity of the states and the weakness of the central government after the end of the Revolutionary War. He believed that direct democracy caused social decay and must be opposed by republican government. He was particularly troubled by laws that legalized paper money and denied diplomatic immunity to ambassadors from other countries. Madison was also concerned about the lack of ability in Congress to capably create foreign policy, protect American trade, and foster the settlement of the lands between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River. As Madison wrote, "a crisis had arrived which was to decide whether the American experiment was to be a blessing to the world, or to blast for ever the hopes which the republican cause had inspired." He committed to an intense study of law and political theory and also was influenced by Enlightenment texts sent by Jefferson from France. He especially sought out works on international law and the constitutions of "ancient and modern confederacies" such as the Dutch Republic, the Swiss Confederation, and the Achaean League. He came to believe that the United States could improve upon past republican experiments by its size which geographically combined 13 colonies; with so many distinct interests competing against each other, Madison hoped to minimize the abuses of majority rule. Additionally, navigation rights to the major trade routes accessed by the Mississippi River highly concerned Madison. He opposed the proposal by John Jay that the United States concede claims to the river for 25 years, and, according to historian John Ketchum, Madison's desire to fight the proposal was a major motivation in his to return to Congress in 1787.


title: James Madison

text: Leading up to the 1787 ratification debates for the Constitution, Madison worked with other members of the Virginia delegation, especially Edmund Randolph and George Mason, to create and present the Virginia Plan, an outline for a new federal constitution. It called for three branches of government (legislative, executive, and judicial), a bicameral Congress (consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives) apportioned by population, and a federal Council of Revision that would have the right to veto laws passed by Congress. The Virginia Plan did not explicitly lay out the structure of the executive branch, but Madison himself favored a strong single executive. Many delegates were surprised to learn that the plan called for the abrogation of the Articles and the creation of a new constitution, to be ratified by special conventions in each state, rather than by the state legislatures. With the assent of prominent attendees such as Washington and Benjamin Franklin, the delegates agreed in a secret session that the abrogation of the Articles and the creation of a new constitution was a plausible option and began scheduling the process of debating its ratification in the individual states. As a compromise between small and large states, large states got a proportional House, while the small states got equal representation in the Senate.


title: James Madison

text: After the Philadelphia Convention ended in September 1787, Madison convinced his fellow congressmen to remain neutral in the ratification debate and allow each state to vote upon the Constitution. Throughout the United States, opponents of the Constitution, known as Anti-Federalists, began a public campaign against ratification. In response, Hamilton and Jay began publishing a series of pro-ratification newspaper articles in New York. After Jay dropped out of the project, Hamilton approached Madison, who was in New York on congressional business, to write some of the essays. Together, Hamilton, Madison, and Jay wrote the 85 essays that became known as "The Federalist Papers" in six months, with Madison writing 29 of them. The articles were also published in book form and used by the supporters of the Constitution in the ratifying conventions. Federalist No. 10, Madison's first contribution to "The Federalist Papers", became highly regarded in the 20th century for its advocacy of representative democracy. In it, Madison describes the dangers posed by majority factions and argues that their effects can be limited through the formation of a large republic. He theorizes that in large republics the large number of factions that emerge will control their influence because no single faction can become a majority. In Federalist No. 51, he goes on to explain how the separation of powers between three branches of the federal government, as well as between state governments and the federal government, establishes a system of checks and balances that ensures that no one institution would become too powerful.


title: James Madison

text: As the Virginia ratification convention began, Madison focused his efforts on winning the support of the relatively small number of undecided delegates. His long correspondence with Randolph paid off at the convention, as Randolph announced that he would support unconditional ratification of the Constitution, with amendments to be proposed after ratification. Though former Virginia governor Patrick Henry gave several persuasive speeches arguing against ratification, Madison's expertise on the subject he had long argued for allowed him to respond with rational arguments to Henry's anti-Federalist appeals. Madison was also a defender of federal veto rights and "pleaded at the Constitutional Convention that the federal government should possess a veto over state laws". In his final speech to the ratifying convention, Madison implored his fellow delegates to ratify the Constitution as it had been written, arguing that failure to do so would lead to the collapse of the entire ratification effort, as each state would seek favorable amendments. On June 25, 1788, the convention voted 89–79 to ratify the Constitution, making Virginia the tenth state to do so. New York ratified the Constitution the following month which allowed for the new Constitutional government to be recognized and Washington to win the country's first presidential election.


title: James Madison

text: After Virginia ratified the constitution, Madison returned to New York and resumed his duties in the Congress of the Confederation. With concerns both for his political career and over the possibility that Henry and his allies would arrange for a second constitutional convention, Madison ran for the House of Representatives. At Henry's behest, the Virginia legislature created congressional districts designed to deny Madison a seat, and Henry recruited Monroe, a strong challenger to Madison. Locked in a difficult race against Monroe, Madison promised to support a series of constitutional amendments to protect individual liberties. In an open letter, Madison wrote that, while he had opposed requiring alterations to the Constitution before ratification, he now believed that "amendments, if pursued with a proper moderation and in a proper mode ... may serve the double purpose of satisfying the minds of well-meaning opponents, and of providing additional guards in favor of liberty." Madison's promise paid off, as in Virginia's 5th district election, he gained a seat in Congress with 57 percent of the vote.


title: James Madison

text: Madison became a key adviser to Washington, who valued Madison's understanding of the constitution. Madison helped Washington write his first inaugural address and also prepared the official House response to Washington's speech. He played a significant role in establishing and staffing the three Cabinet departments, and his influence helped Thomas Jefferson become the first Secretary of State. At the start of the first Congress, he introduced a tariff bill similar to the one he had advocated for under the Articles of the Confederation, and Congress established a federal tariff on imports by enacting the Tariff of 1789. The following year, Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton introduced an ambitious economic program that called for the federal assumption of state debts and the funding of that debt through the issuance of federal securities. Hamilton's plan favored Northern speculators and was disadvantageous to states, such as Virginia, that had already paid off most of their debt; Madison emerged as one of the principal Congressional opponents of the plan. After prolonged legislative deadlock, Madison, Jefferson, and Hamilton agreed to the Compromise of 1790, which provided for the enactment of Hamilton's assumption plan, as part of the Funding Act of 1790. In return, Congress passed the Residence Act, which established the federal capital district of Washington, D.C., on the Potomac River.


title: James Madison

text: During the first Congress, Madison took the lead in advocating for several constitutional amendments to the Bill of Rights. His primary goals were to fulfill his 1789 campaign pledge and to prevent the calling of a second constitutional convention, but he also hoped to protect individual liberties against the actions of the federal government and state legislatures. He believed that the enumeration of specific rights would fix those rights in the public mind and encourage judges to protect them. After studying more than two-hundred amendments that had been proposed at the state ratifying conventions, Madison introduced the Bill of Rights on June 8, 1789. His amendments contained numerous restrictions on the federal government and would protect, among other things, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and the right to peaceful assembly. While most of his proposed amendments were drawn from the ratifying conventions, Madison was largely responsible for proposals to guarantee freedom of the press, protect property from government seizure, and ensure jury trials. He also proposed an amendment to prevent states from abridging "equal rights of conscience, or freedom of the press, or the trial by jury in criminal cases".


title: James Madison

text: Madison's Bill of Rights faced little opposition; he had largely co-opted the Anti-Federalist goal of amending the Constitution but had avoided proposing amendments that would alienate supporters of the Constitution. Madison's amendments were mostly adopted by the House of Representatives as proposed, but the Senate made several changes. Madison's proposal to apply parts of the Bill of Rights to the states was eliminated, as was his change to the Constitution's preamble which Madison thought would be enhanced by including a prefatory paragraph indicating that governmental power is vested by the people. Madison was disappointed that the Bill of Rights did not include protections against actions by state governments, but the passage of the document mollified some critics of the original constitution and shored up Madison's support in Virginia. Ten amendments were finally ratified on December 15, 1791, becoming known in their final form as the Bill of Rights.


title: James Madison

text: After 1790, the Washington administration became polarized into two main factions. One faction, led by Jefferson and Madison, broadly represented Southern interests and sought close relations with France. This faction became the Democratic-Republican Party opposition to Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton. The other faction, led by Hamilton and the Federalists, broadly represented Northern financial interests and favored close relations with Britain. In 1791, Hamilton introduced a plan that called for the establishment of a national bank to provide loans to emerging industries and oversee the money supply. Madison and the Democratic-Republican Party fought back against Hamilton's attempt to expand the power of the Federal Government with the formation of a national bank. Therefore, they opposed Hamilton's plan and Madison argued that under the Constitution, Congress did not have the power to create a federally empowered national bank. Despite Madison's opposition, Congress passed a bill to create the First Bank of the United States, which Washington signed into law in February 1791. As Hamilton implemented his economic program and Washington continued to enjoy immense prestige as president, Madison became increasingly concerned that Hamilton would seek to abolish the federal republic in favor of a centralized monarchy.


title: James Madison

text: When Hamilton submitted his "Report on Manufactures", which called for federal action to stimulate the development of a diversified economy, Madison once again challenged Hamilton's proposal. Along with Jefferson, Madison helped Philip Freneau establish the "National Gazette", a Philadelphia newspaper that attacked Hamilton's proposals. In an essay published in the newspaper in September 1792, Madison wrote that the country had divided into two factions: his faction, which believed "that mankind are capable of governing themselves", and Hamilton's faction, which allegedly sought the establishment of an aristocratic monarchy and was biased in favor of the wealthy. Those opposed to Hamilton's economic policies, including many former Anti-Federalists, continued to strengthen the ranks of the Democratic–Republican Party, while those who supported the administration's policies supported Hamilton's Federalist Party. In the 1792 presidential election, both major parties supported Washington for re-election, but the Democratic–Republicans sought to unseat Vice President John Adams. Because the Constitution's rules essentially precluded Jefferson from challenging Adams, the party backed New York Governor George Clinton for the vice presidency, but Adams won nonetheless.


title: James Madison

text: With Jefferson out of office after 1793, Madison became the de facto leader of the Democratic–Republican Party. When Britain and France went to war in 1793, the U.S. needed to determine which side to support. While the differences between the Democratic–Republicans and the Federalists had previously centered on economic matters, foreign policy became an increasingly important issue, as Madison and Jefferson favored France and Hamilton favored Britain. War with Britain became imminent in 1794, after the British seized hundreds of American ships that were trading with French colonies. Madison believed that a trade war with Britain would probably succeed, and would allow Americans to assert their independence fully. The British West Indies, Madison maintained, could not live without American foodstuffs, but Americans could easily do without British manufacturers. Washington then secured friendly trade relations with Britain through the Jay Treaty of 1794. Madison and his Democratic–Republican allies were outraged by the treaty; the Democratic–Republican Robert R. Livingston wrote to Madison that the treaty "sacrifices every essential interest and prostrates the honor of our country". Madison's strong opposition to the treaty led to a permanent break with Washington, ending their friendship.


title: James Madison

text: On September 15, 1794, Madison married Dolley Payne Todd, the 26-year-old widow of John Todd, a Quaker farmer who died during a yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia. Aaron Burr introduced Madison to her, at his request, after Dolley had stayed in the same boardinghouse as Burr in Philadelphia. After an arranged meeting in early 1794, the two quickly became romantically engaged and prepared for a wedding that summer, but Dolley suffered recurring illnesses because of her exposure to yellow fever in Philadelphia. They eventually traveled to Harewood in Virginia for their wedding. Only a few close family members attended, and Winchester Reverend Alexander Balmain presided. Dolley became a renowned figure in Washington, D.C., and excelled at hosting dinners and other important political occasions. She subsequently helped to establish the modern image of the first lady of the United States as an individual who has a leading role in the social affairs of the nation.


title: James Madison

text: Throughout his life, Madison maintained a close relationship with his father, James Sr. Eventually at age 50, Madison inherited the large plantation of Montpelier and other possessions, including his father's numerous slaves. Of his six siblings who lived to adulthood, Ambrose (one of the younger siblings) helped manage Montpelier for both his father and older brother until his own death in 1793. Madison never had children, but he adopted Dolley's one surviving son, John Payne Todd (known as Payne), after the marriage. Some of his colleagues, such as Monroe and Burr, would later infer that Madison was infertile and that his lack of offspring weighed on his thoughts, but Madison never spoke of any such distress. Nonetheless, questions about his infertility have been raised in recent years, following a 2007 article in "The Washington Post", in which an African-American named Bettye Kearse claimed to be a descendant of Madison and a slave named Coreen.


title: James Madison

text: Washington chose to retire after serving two terms and, in advance of the 1796 presidential election, Madison helped convince Jefferson to run for the presidency. Despite Madison's efforts, Federalist candidate John Adams defeated Jefferson, taking a narrow majority of the electoral vote. Under the rules of the Electoral College then in place, Jefferson became vice president because he finished with the second-most electoral votes. Madison, meanwhile, had declined to seek re-election to the House, and he returned to Montpelier. On Jefferson's advice, Adams considered appointing Madison to an American delegation charged with ending French attacks on American shipping, but Adams's cabinet members strongly opposed the idea.


title: James Madison

text: Though he was out of office, Madison remained a prominent Democratic–Republican leader in opposition to the Adams administration. Madison and Jefferson believed that the Federalists were using the Quasi-War with France to justify the violation of constitutional rights by passing the Alien and Sedition Acts, and they increasingly came to view Adams as a monarchist. Both Madison and Jefferson, as leaders of the Democratic–Republican party, expressed the belief that natural rights were non-negotiable even during a time of war. Madison believed that the Alien and Sedition acts formed a dangerous precedent, by giving the government the power to look past the natural rights of its people in the name of national security. In response to the Alien and Sedition Acts, Jefferson argued that the states had the power to nullify federal law on the basis of the Constitution being a compact among the states. Madison rejected this view of nullification, and urged that states respond to unjust federal laws through interposition, a process by which a state legislature declared a law to be unconstitutional but did not take steps to actively prevent its enforcement. Jefferson's doctrine of nullification was widely rejected, and the incident damaged the Democratic–Republican Party as attention was shifted from the Alien and Sedition Acts to the unpopular nullification doctrine.


title: James Madison

text: In 1799, Madison was elected to the Virginia legislature. At the same time, he and Jefferson planned for Jefferson's campaign in the 1800 presidential election. Madison issued the Report of 1800, which attacked the Alien and Sedition Acts as unconstitutional. That report held that Congress was limited to legislating on its enumerated powers and that punishment for sedition violated freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Jefferson embraced the report, and it became the unofficial Democratic–Republican platform for the 1800 election. With the Federalists divided between supporters of Hamilton and Adams, and with news of the end of the Quasi-War not reaching the United States until after the election, Jefferson and his ostensible running mate, Aaron Burr, defeated Adams, allowing Jefferson to prevail as president.


title: James Madison

text: Madison was one of two major influences in Jefferson's Cabinet, the other being Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. Madison was appointed secretary of state despite lacking foreign policy experience. An introspective individual, he received assistance from his wife, relying deeply on her in dealing with the social pressures of being a public figure both in his own Cabinet appointment as secretary of state and afterwards. As the ascent of Napoleon in France had dulled Democratic–Republican enthusiasm for the French cause, Madison sought a neutral position in the ongoing Coalition Wars between France and Britain. Domestically, the Jefferson administration and the Democratic–Republican Congress rolled back many Federalist policies; Congress quickly repealed the Alien and Sedition Act, abolished internal taxes, and reduced the size of the army and navy. Gallatin, however, did convince Jefferson to retain the First Bank of the United States. Though the Federalist political power was rapidly fading away at the national level, Chief Justice John Marshall ensured that Federalist ideology retained an important presence in the judiciary. In the case of "Marbury v. Madison", Marshall simultaneously ruled that Madison had unjustly refused to deliver federal commissions to individuals who had been appointed by the previous administration, but that the Supreme Court did not have jurisdiction over the case. Most importantly, Marshall's opinion established the principle of judicial review. While attaining the position of secretary of state and throughout his life, Madison's maintained cantact with his father, James Sr., who died in 1801 and which allowed Madison to inherit the large plantation of Montpelier.


title: James Madison

text: Jefferson took office and was sympathetic to the westward expansion of Americans who had settled as far west as the Mississippi River; his sympathy to expansion was supported by his concern for the sparse regional demographics in the far west compared to the more populated eastern states, the far west being inhabited almost exclusively by Native Americans. Jefferson promoted such western expansion and hoped to acquire the Spanish territory of Louisiana, west of the Mississippi River, for expansionist purposes. Early in Jefferson's presidency, the administration learned that Spain planned to retrocede the Louisiana territory to France, raising fears of French encroachment on U.S. territory. In 1802, Jefferson and Madison sent Monroe, a sympathetic fellow Virginian, to France to negotiate the purchase of New Orleans, which controlled access to the Mississippi River and thus was immensely important to the farmers of the American frontier. Rather than merely selling New Orleans, Napoleon's government, having already given up on plans to establish a new French empire in the Americas, offered to sell the entire territory of Louisiana. Despite lacking explicit authorization from Jefferson, Monroe, along with Livingston, whom Jefferson had appointed as American's minister to France, negotiated the Louisiana Purchase, in which France sold more than of land in exchange for $15 million ($271 million adjusted for inflation in 2021).


title: James Madison

text: Despite the time-sensitive nature of negotiations with the French, Jefferson was concerned about the constitutionality of the Louisiana Purchase, and he privately favored introducing a constitutional amendment explicitly authorizing Congress to acquire new territories. Madison convinced Jefferson to refrain from proposing the amendment, and the administration ultimately submitted the Louisiana Purchase Treaty for approval by the Senate, without an accompanying constitutional amendment. Unlike Jefferson, Madison was not seriously concerned with the constitutionality of the purchase. He believed that the circumstances did not warrant a strict interpretation of the Constitution, because the expansion was in the country's best interest. The Senate quickly ratified the treaty, and the House, with equal alacrity, passed enabling legislation.


title: James Madison

text: Early in his tenure, Jefferson was able to maintain cordial relations with both France and Britain, but relations with Britain deteriorated after 1805. The British ended their policy of tolerance towards American shipping and began seizing American goods headed for French ports. They also impressed American sailors, some of whom had originally defected from the British navy, but some of whom had never been British subjects. In response to the attacks, Congress passed the Non-importation Act, which restricted many, but not all, British imports. Tensions with Britain were heightened due to the "Chesapeake–Leopard affair", a June 1807 naval confrontation between American and British naval forces, while the French also began attacking American shipping. Madison believed that economic pressure could force the British to end their seizure of American shipped goods, and he and Jefferson convinced Congress to pass the Embargo Act of 1807, which banned all exports to foreign nations. The embargo proved ineffective, unpopular, and difficult to enforce, especially in New England. In March 1809, Congress replaced the embargo with the Non-Intercourse Act, which allowed trade with nations other than Britain and France.


title: James Madison

text: Speculation regarding Madison's potential succession of Jefferson commenced early in Jefferson's first term. Madison's status in the party was damaged by his association with the embargo, which was unpopular throughout the country and especially in the Northeast. With the Federalists collapsing as a national party after 1800, the chief opposition to Madison's candidacy came from other members of the Democratic–Republican Party. Madison became the target of attacks from Congressman John Randolph, a leader of a faction of the party known as the tertium quids.


title: James Madison

text: Randolph recruited Monroe, who had felt betrayed by the administration's rejection of the proposed Monroe–Pinkney Treaty with Britain, to challenge Madison for leadership of the party. Many Northerners, meanwhile, hoped that Vice President Clinton could unseat Madison as Jefferson's successor. Despite this opposition, Madison won his party's presidential nomination at the January 1808 congressional nominating caucus. The Federalist Party mustered little strength outside New England, and Madison easily defeated Federalist candidate Charles Cotesworth Pinckney in the general election.


title: James Madison

text: On March 4, 1809, Madison took the oath of office and was inaugurated president. Unlike Jefferson, who enjoyed relatively unified support, Madison faced political opposition from previous political allies such as Monroe and Clinton. Additionally, the Federalist Party was resurgent owing to opposition to the embargo. Aside from his planned nomination of Gallatin for secretary of state, the remaining members of Madison's Cabinet were chosen merely to further political harmony, and, according to historians Ketcham and Rutland, were largely unremarkable or incompetent. Due to the opposition of Monroe and Clinton, Madison immediately faced opposition to his planned nomination of Secretary of the Treasury Gallatin as secretary of state. Madison eventually chose not to nominate Gallatin, keeping him in the treasury department.


title: James Madison

text: Madison settled instead for Robert Smith, the brother of Maryland Senator Samuel Smith, to be the secretary of state. However, for the next two years, Madison performed most of the job of the secretary of state due to Smith's incompetence. After bitter intra-party contention, Madison finally replaced Smith with Monroe in April 1811. With a Cabinet full of those he distrusted, Madison rarely called Cabinet meetings and instead frequently consulted with Gallatin alone. Early in his presidency, Madison sought to continue Jefferson's policies of low taxes and a reduction of the national debt. In 1811, Congress allowed the charter of the First Bank of the United States to lapse after Madison declined to take a strong stance on the issue.


title: James Madison

text: Congress had repealed the Embargo Act of 1807 shortly before Madison became president, but troubles with the British and French continued. Madison settled on a new strategy that was designed to pit the British and French against each other, offering to trade with whichever country would end their attacks against American shipping. The gambit almost succeeded, but negotiations with the British collapsed in mid-1809. Seeking to drive a wedge between the Americans and British, Napoleon offered to end French attacks on American shipping so long as the United States punished any countries that did not similarly end restrictions on trade. Madison accepted Napoleon's proposal in the hope that it would convince the British to finally end their policy of commercial warfare. However, the British refused to change their policies, and the French reneged on their promise and continued to attack American shipping.


title: James Madison

text: With sanctions and other policies having failed, Madison determined that war with Britain was the only remaining option. Many Americans called for a "second war of independence" to restore honor and stature to their new nation, and an angry public elected a "war hawk" Congress, led by Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun. With Britain in the midst of the Napoleonic Wars, many Americans including Madison believed that the United States could easily capture Canada, at which point the U.S. could use Canada as a bargaining chip for all other disputes or simply retain control of it. On June 1, 1812, Madison asked Congress for a declaration of war, stating that the United States could no longer tolerate Britain's "state of war against the United States". The declaration of war was passed along sectional and party lines, with opposition to the declaration coming from Federalists and from some Democratic–Republicans in the Northeast. In the years prior to the war, Jefferson and Madison had reduced the size of the military, leaving the country with a military force consisting mostly of poorly trained militia members. Madison asked Congress to quickly put the country "into an armor and an attitude demanded by the crisis", specifically recommending expansion of the army and navy.


title: James Madison

text: Madison and his advisers initially believed the war would result in a quick American victory. Being overconfident, Madison ordered a three military spearhead incursions into Canada, starting at Detroit, which was designed to loosen British control around American-held Fort Niagara and destroy the British supply lines from Montreal. These actions would gain leverage for concessions to protect American shipping in the Atlantic. Without a standing army, Madison counted on state militias to rally to the flag and invade Canada: however, governors in the Northeast failed to cooperate. As a result, Madison's first Canadian campaign ended in failure. The British army was more organized, used professional soldiers, and fostered an alliance with Native American tribes led by Tecumseh. On August 16, Major General William Hull, timidly fearing an Indian attack, quickly surrendered to British and Native American forces at Detroit. On October 13, a separate force from the United States was defeated at Queenston Heights. Commanding General Henry Dearborn, hampered by mutinous New England infantry, retreated to winter quarters near Albany, after failing to destroy Montreal's vulnerable British supply lines. Lacking adequate revenue to fund the war, the Madison administration was forced to rely on high-interest loans furnished by bankers based in New York City and Philadelphia.


title: James Madison

text: In the 1812 presidential election, held during the early stages of the war, Madison was re-nominated without opposition. A dissident group of New York Democratic-Republicans nominated DeWitt Clinton, the lieutenant governor of New York and the nephew of recently deceased Vice President George Clinton, to oppose Madison in the 1812 election. This faction of Democratic-Republicans hoped to unseat the president by forging a coalition among Democratic-Republicans opposed to the coming war, as well as those party faithful angry with Madison for not moving more decisively toward war, northerners weary of the Virginia dynasty and southern control of the White House, and many New Englanders wanted Madison replaced. Dismayed about their prospects of beating Madison, a group of top Federalists met with Clinton's supporters to discuss a unification strategy. Difficult as it was for them to join forces, they nominated Clinton for President and Jared Ingersoll, a Philadelphia lawyer, for vice president. Hoping to shore up his support in the Northeast, where the War of 1812 was unpopular, Madison selected Governor Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts as his running mate. Despite the maneuverings of Clinton and the Federalists, Madison won re-election, though by the narrowest margin of any election since that of 1800 in the popular vote as later supported by the electoral vote as well. He received 128 electoral votes to 89 for Clinton. With Clinton winning most of the Northeast, Madison won Pennsylvania in addition to having swept the South and the West which ensured his victory.


title: James Madison

text: After the disastrous start to the war, Madison accepted Russia's invitation to arbitrate, and sent a delegation led by Gallatin and John Quincy Adams (the son of former President John Adams) to Europe to negotiate a peace treaty. While Madison worked to end the war, the United States experienced some impressive naval successes, by the and other warships, that boosted American morale. Victorious in the Battle of Lake Erie, the U.S. crippled the supply and reinforcement of British military forces in the western theater of the war. In the aftermath of the Battle of Lake Erie, General William Henry Harrison defeated the forces of the British and of Tecumseh's confederacy at the Battle of the Thames. The death of Tecumseh in that battle marked the permanent end of armed Native American resistance in the Old Northwest and any hope of a united Indian nation. In March 1814, Major General Andrew Jackson broke the resistance of the British-allied Muscogee Creek in the Old Southwest with his victory at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. Despite those successes, the British continued to repel American attempts to invade Canada, and a British force captured Fort Niagara and burned the American city of Buffalo in late 1813.


title: James Madison

text: In August 1814, the British landed a large force on the shores of Chesapeake Bay and routed Winder's army at the Battle of Bladensburg. The Madisons escaped capture by fleeing to Virginia by horseback, however, the British captured Washington and burned many of its buildings. The charred remains of the capital signified a humiliating defeat for Madison and America. The British army next moved on Baltimore, but the U.S. repelled the British attack in the Battle of Baltimore, and the British army departed from the Chesapeake region in September. That same month, U.S. forces repelled a British invasion from Canada with a victory at the Battle of Plattsburgh. The British public began to turn against the war in North America, and British leaders began to look for a quick exit from the conflict.


title: James Madison

text: In January 1815, Jackson's troops defeated the British at the Battle of New Orleans. Just more than a month later, Madison learned that his negotiators led by John Quincy Adams had concluded the Treaty of Ghent on December 24, 1814 which ended the war. Madison quickly sent the treaty to the Senate, which ratified it on February 16, 1815. Although the result of the war was inconclusive, the quick succession of events at the end of the war, including the burning of the capital, the Battle of New Orleans, and the Treaty of Ghent, made it appear as though American valor at New Orleans had forced the British to surrender. This view, while inaccurate, strongly contributed to bolstering Madison's reputation as president. Native Americans lost the most, including their land and independence. Napoleon's defeat at the June 1815 Battle of Waterloo brought a final close to the Napoleonic Wars and thus an end to the hostile seizure of American shipping by British and French forces.


title: James Madison

text: The postwar period of Madison's second term saw the transition into the "Era of Good Feelings" between mid-1815 and 1817, with the Federalists experiencing further decline in influence. During the war, delegates from the New England states held the Hartford Convention, where they asked for several amendments to the Constitution. Though the Hartford Convention did not explicitly call for the secession of New England, the Convention became an adverse political millstone around the Federalist Party as general American sentiment had moved towards a celebrated unity among the states in what they saw as a successful "second war of independence" from Britain.


title: James Madison

text: Madison hastened the decline of the Federalists by adopting several programs he had previously opposed. Recognizing the difficulties of financing the war and the necessity of an institution to regulate American currency, Madison proposed the re-establishment of a national bank. He also called for increased spending on the army and the navy, a tariff designed to protect American goods from foreign competition, and a constitutional amendment authorizing the federal government to fund the construction of internal improvements such as roads and canals. Madison's initiatives to now act on behalf of a national bank appeared to reverse his earlier opposition to Hamilton and were opposed by strict constructionists such as John Randolph, who stated that Madison's proposals now "out-Hamiltons Alexander Hamilton". Responding to Madison's proposals, the 14th Congress compiled one of the most productive legislative records up to that point in history. Congress granted the Second Bank of the United States a twenty-five-year charter and passed the Tariff of 1816, which set high import duties for all goods that were produced outside the United States. Madison approved federal spending on the Cumberland Road, which provided a link to the country's western lands; however, in his last act before leaving office, he blocked further federal spending on internal improvements by vetoing the Bonus Bill of 1817 arguing that it unduly exceeded the limits of the General Welfare Clause concerning such improvements.


title: James Madison

text: Upon becoming president, Madison said the federal government's duty was to convert Native Americans by the "participation of the improvements of which the human mind and manners are susceptible in a civilized state". In 1809 Harrison began to push for a treaty to open more land for white American settlement. The Miami, Wea, and Kickapoo were vehemently opposed to selling any more land around the Wabash River. To motivate those groups to sell their land, Harrison decided, against the wishes of Madison, to first conclude a treaty with the tribes who were willing to sell and use those treaties to help influence those who held out. In September 1809, Harrison invited the Potawatomie, Delaware, Eel Rivers, and the Miami to a meeting in Fort Wayne. During the negotiations, Harrison promised large subsidies and direct payments to the tribes if they would cede the other lands under discussion. On September 30, 1809, little more than six months into his first term, Madison agreed to the Treaty of Fort Wayne, negotiated and signed by Indiana Territory's Governor Harrison. In the treaty, the American Indian tribes were compensated $5,200 ($109,122 in 2020) in goods and $500 in cash ($10,900 in 2020), with $250 in annual payments ($5,450 in 2020), in return for the cession of 3 million acres of land (approximately 12,140 square kilometers) with incentivized subsidies paid to individual tribes for exerting their influence over less cooperative tribes. The treaty angered Shawnee leader Tecumseh, who said, "Sell a country! Why not sell the air, the clouds and the great sea, as well as the earth?" Harrison responded that tribes were the owners of their land and could sell it to whomever they wished.


title: James Madison

text: Like Jefferson, Madison had a paternalistic attitude toward American Indians, encouraging them to become farmers. Madison believed the adoption of European-style agriculture would help Native Americans assimilate the values of British–U.S. civilization. As pioneers and settlers moved West into large tracts of Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, and Chickasaw territory, Madison ordered the U.S. Army to protect Native lands from intrusion by settlers. This was done to the chagrin of his military commander Andrew Jackson, who wanted Madison to ignore Indian pleas to stop the invasion of their lands. Tensions continued to mount between the United States and Tecumseh over the 1809 Treaty of Fort Wayne, which ultimately led to Tecumseh's alliance with the British and the Battle of Tippecanoe, on November 7, 1811, in the Northwest Territory. The divisions among the Native American leaders were bitter and before leaving the discussions, Tecumseh informed Harrison that unless the terms of the negotiated treaty were largely nullified, he would seek an alliance with the British.


title: James Madison

text: The situation continued to escalate, eventually leading to the outbreak of hostilities between Tecumseh's followers and American settlers later that year. Tensions continued to rise, leading to the Battle of Tippecanoe during a period sometimes called Tecumseh's War. Tecumseh was defeated and Indians were pushed off their tribal lands, replaced entirely by white settlers. In addition to the Battle of the Thames and the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, other wars with American Indians took place, including the Peoria War, and the Creek War. Negotiated by Jackson, in the aftermath of the Creek War, the Treaty of Fort Jackson of August 9, 1814, added approximately 23 million acres of land to the United States (93,000 square kilometers) in Georgia and Alabama. Privately, Madison did not believe American Indians could be fully assimilated to the values of Euro-American culture. He believed that Native Americans may have been unwilling to make "the transition from the hunter, or even the herdsman state, to the agriculture". Madison feared that Native Americans had too great an influence on the settlers they interacted with, who in his view were "irresistibly attracted by that complete liberty, that freedom from bonds, obligations, duties, that absence of care and anxiety which characterize the savage state". Harrison responded that tribes were the owners of their land and could sell it to whomever they wished. Later in Madison's term, in March 1816, Madison's Secretary of War William Crawford advocated for the government to encourage intermarriages between Native Americans and whites as a way of assimilating the former. This prompted public outrage and exacerbated anti-indigenous bigotry among white Americans, as seen in hostile letters sent to Madison, who remained publicly silent on the issue.


title: James Madison

text: In the 1816 presidential election, Madison and Jefferson both favored the candidacy of Secretary of State James Monroe, who defeated Secretary of War William H. Crawford in the party's congressional nominating caucus. As the Federalist Party continued to collapse, Monroe easily defeated Federalist candidate Rufus King in the 1816 election. Madison left office as a popular president; former president Adams wrote that Madison had "acquired more glory, and established more union, than all his three predecessors, Washington, Adams, and Jefferson, put together".


title: James Madison

text: When Madison left office in 1817 at age 65, he retired to Montpelier, not far from Jefferson's Monticello. As with both Washington and Jefferson, Madison left the presidency a poorer man than when he came in. His plantation experienced a steady financial collapse, due to price declines in tobacco and his stepson's mismanagement. In his retirement, Madison occasionally became involved in public affairs, advising Andrew Jackson and other presidents. He remained out of the public debate over the Missouri Compromise, though he privately complained about the North's opposition to the extension of slavery. Madison had warm relations with all four of the major candidates in the 1824 presidential election, but, like Jefferson, largely stayed out of the race. During Jackson's presidency, Madison publicly disavowed the Nullification movement and argued that no state had the right to secede. Madison also helped Jefferson establish the University of Virginia. In 1826, after the death of Jefferson, Madison was appointed as the second rector of the university. He retained the position as college chancellor for ten years until his death in 1836.


title: James Madison

text: In 1829, at the age of 78, Madison was chosen as a representative to the Virginia Constitutional Convention for revision of the commonwealth's constitution. It was his last appearance as a statesman. Apportionment of adequate representation was the central issue at the convention for the western districts of Virginia. The increased population in the Piedmont and western parts of the state were not proportionately represented in the legislature. Western reformers also wanted to extend suffrage to all white men, in place of the prevailing property ownership requirement. Madison made modest gains but was disappointed at the failure of Virginians to extend suffrage to all white men. In his later years, Madison became highly concerned about his historical legacy. He resorted to modifying letters and other documents in his possession, changing days and dates, adding and deleting words and sentences. By his late seventies, Madison's self-editing of his own archived letters and older materials had become almost an obsession. As an example, he edited a letter written to Jefferson criticizing Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette; Madison not only inked out original passages, but in other correspondence he even forged Jefferson's handwriting. Historian Drew R. McCoy wrote that, "During the final six years of his life, amid a sea of personal [financial] troubles that were threatening to engulf him ... At times mental agitation issued in physical collapse. For the better part of a year in 1831 and 1832 he was bedridden, if not silenced ... Literally sick with anxiety, he began to despair of his ability to make himself understood by his fellow citizens."


title: James Madison

text: Madison's health slowly deteriorated through the early-to-mid-1830s. By coincidence, the Fourth of July was the day of the year on which former presidents Jefferson, Adams, and Monroe had all died. Approaching the Fourth of July, he died of congestive heart failure at Montpelier on the morning of June 28, 1836, at the age of 85. According to one common account of his final moments, he was given his breakfast, which he tried eating but was unable to swallow. His favorite niece, who sat by to keep him company, asked him, "What is the matter, Uncle James?" Madison died immediately after he replied, "Nothing more than a change of "mind", my dear." He was buried in the family cemetery at Montpelier. He was one of the last prominent members of the Revolutionary War generation to die. His last will and testament left significant sums to the American Colonization Society, Princeton, and the University of Virginia, as well as $30,000 ($897,000 in 2021) to his wife, Dolley. Left with a smaller sum than Madison had intended, Dolley suffered financial troubles until her death in 1849. In the 1840s Dolley sold Montpelier, its remaining slaves, and the furnishings to pay off outstanding debts. Paul Jennings, one of Madison's younger slaves, later recalled in his memoir,


title: James Madison

text: In the last days of her life, before Congress purchased her husband's papers, she was in a state of absolute poverty, and I think sometimes suffered for the necessaries of life. While I was a servant to Mr. Webster, he often sent me to her with a market-basket full of provisions, and told me whenever I saw anything in the house that I thought she was in need of, to take it to her. I often did this, and occasionally gave her small sums from my own pocket, though I had years before bought my freedom of her.


title: James Madison

text: During his first stint in Congress in the 1780s, Madison came to favor amending the Articles of Confederation to provide for a stronger central government. In the 1790s, he led the opposition to Hamilton's centralizing policies and the Alien and Sedition Acts. Madison's support of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions in the 1790s has been referred to as "a breathtaking evolution for a man who had pleaded at the Constitutional Convention that the federal government should possess a veto over state laws".


title: James Madison

text: Although baptized as an Anglican and educated by Presbyterian clergymen, young Madison was an avid reader of English deist tracts. As an adult, Madison paid little attention to religious matters. Though most historians have found little indication of his religious leanings after he left college, some scholars indicate he leaned toward deism. Others maintain that Madison accepted Christian tenets and formed his outlook on life with a Christian world view. Regardless of his own religious beliefs, Madison believed in religious liberty, and he advocated for Virginia's disestablishment of religious institutions sponsored by the state. He also opposed the appointments of chaplains for Congress and the armed forces, arguing that the appointments produce religious exclusion as well as political disharmony.


title: James Madison

text: Madison grew up on a plantation that made use of slave labor and he viewed slavery as a necessary part of the Southern economy, though he was troubled by the instability of a society that depended on a large slave population. Madison supported a republican form of government, but he believed that the form of republicanism practiced in slave states was more aristocratic than democratic. He was aware that his actions contradicted his revolutionary values, but this sort of self-contradiction was a common feature in his career.


title: James Madison

text: Madison initially opposed the 20-year delay in ending the foreign slave trade imposed by the Slave Trade Clause in the Constitution. However, he eventually accepted it as a necessary compromise to get the South to ratify the document. He also proposed that apportionment in the House of Representatives be according to each state's free and slave population, eventually leading to the adoption of the Three-fifths Compromise. Madison supported the extension of slavery into the West during the Missouri crisis of 1819–1821 and held the view that former slaves were unlikely to successfully integrate into Southern society. In the late 1780s, he became interested in the idea of African-Americans establishing colonies in Africa, and he later served as the president of the American Colonization Society, which founded the settlement of Liberia for former slaves.


title: James Madison

text: Madison was referred to as a "garden-variety slaveholder" by historian Elizabeth Dowling Taylor. Although Madison abstained from excessive cruelty to slaves, to avoid criticism from peers, he worked his slaves from dawn to dusk, six days a week, allowing Sundays off for rest. By 1801, Madison owned slightly more than 100 slaves at Montpelier. During the 1820s and 1830s, Madison sold some of his land and people he enslaved to repay debt. In 1836, at the time of Madison's death, he owned 36 taxable slaves. Madison did not free any of his slaves, either during his lifetime or in his will.


title: James Madison

text: One of the Founding Fathers of the United States, Madison had a wide influence on the founding of the nation and upon the early development of American constitutional government and foreign policy. Historian J. C. A. Stagg writes that "in some ways—because he was on the winning side of every important issue facing the young nation from 1776 to 1816—Madison was the most successful and possibly the most influential of all the Founding Fathers." Though he helped found a major political party and served as the fourth president, his legacy has largely been defined by his contributions to the Constitution; even in his own life he was hailed as the "Father of the Constitution". Law professor Noah Feldman writes that Madison "invented and theorized the modern ideal of an expanded, federal constitution that combines local self-government with an overarching national order". Feldman adds that Madison's "model of liberty-protecting constitutional government" is "the most influential American idea in global political history". Various rankings of historians and political scientists tend to rank Madison as an above average president with a 2018 poll of the American Political Science Association's Presidents and Executive Politics section ranking Madison as the twelfth best president.


title: James Madison

text: Many historians have criticized Madison's tenure as president. In 1968, Henry Steele Commager and Richard B. Morris said the conventional view of Madison was of an "incapable President" who "mismanaged an unnecessary war". A 2006 poll of historians ranked Madison's failure to prevent the War of 1812 as the sixth-worst mistake made by a sitting president. Regarding Madison's consistency and adaptability of policy making during his many years of political acitivy, historian Gordon S. Wood says that Lance Banning, as in his "Sacred Fire of Liberty" (1995), is the "only present-day scholar to maintain that Madison did not change his views in the 1790s". During and after the War of 1812, Madison came to support several of their policies which he had opposed in the 1790s, including the national bank, a strong navy, and direct taxes. Wood notes that many historians struggle to understand Madison, but Wood looks at him in the terms of Madison's own times—as a nationalist but one with a different conception of nationalism than that of the Federalists. Gary Rosen uses other approaches to suggest Madison's consistency. Historian Garry Wills wrote, "Madison's claim on our admiration does not rest on a perfect consistency, any more than it rests on his presidency. He has other virtues. ... As a framer and defender of the Constitution he had no peer. ... No man could do everything for the country—not even Washington. Madison did more than most, and did some things better than any. That was quite enough."


title: James Madison

text: Madison, portrayed by Burgess Meredith, is a key protagonist in the 1946 Hollywood film "Magnificent Doll", which focuses on a fictionalized account of Dolley Madison's romantic life. Madison is also portrayed in the popular Broadway musical "Hamilton" played by Joshua Henry in the original 2013 Vassar version. Okieriete Onaodowan then reprised the role of Madison for the Broadway opening in 2015. Onaodowan also went on to win a Grammy Award for his part in the cast portraying Madison.


title: James Madison

text: Montpelier, the Madison family's plantation, has been designated a National Historic Landmark. The James Madison Memorial Building is part of the United States Library of Congress and serves as the official memorial to Madison. In 1986, Congress created the James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation as part of the bicentennial celebration of the Constitution. Other memorials include Madison, Wisconsin and Madison County, Alabama which were both named for Madison, as were Madison Square Garden, James Madison University, and the USS "James Madison". In 2021, the Madison Metropolitan School District renamed James Madison Memorial High School following community opposition to commemorating an enslaver.


title: Little Richard

text: Richard Wayne Penniman (December 5, 1932 – May 9, 2020), known professionally as Little Richard, was an American musician, singer, and songwriter. He was an influential figure in popular music and culture for seven decades. Described as the "Architect of Rock and Roll", Richard's most celebrated work dates from the mid-1950s, when his charismatic showmanship and dynamic music, characterized by frenetic piano playing, pounding back beat and raspy shouted vocals, laid the foundation for rock and roll. Richard's innovative emotive vocalizations and uptempo rhythmic music also played a key role in the formation of other popular music genres, including soul and funk. He influenced numerous singers and musicians across musical genres from rock to hip hop; his music helped shape rhythm and blues for generations.


title: Little Richard

text: "Tutti Frutti" (1955), one of Richard's signature songs, became an instant hit, crossing over to the pop charts in both the United States and the United Kingdom. His next hit single, "Long Tall Sally" (1956), hit No. 1 on the "Billboard" Rhythm and Blues Best-Sellers chart, followed by a rapid succession of fifteen more in less than three years. His performances during this period resulted in integration between White Americans and African Americans in his audience. In 1962, after a five-year period during which Richard abandoned rock and roll music for born again Christianity, concert promoter Don Arden persuaded him to tour Europe. During this time, the Beatles opened for Richard on some tour dates. Richard advised the Beatles on how to perform his songs and taught the band's member Paul McCartney his distinctive vocalizations.


title: Little Richard

text: Richard is cited as one of the first crossover black artists, reaching audiences of all races. His music and concerts broke the color line, drawing black and white people together despite attempts to sustain segregation. Many of his contemporaries, including Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Bill Haley, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Everly Brothers, Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran, recorded covers of his works. Taken by his music and style, and personally covering four of Richard's songs on his own two breakthrough albums in 1956, Presley told Richard in 1969 that his music was an inspiration to him and that he was "the greatest".


title: Little Richard

text: Richard was honored by many institutions. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as part of its first group of inductees in 1986. He was also inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He was the recipient of Lifetime Achievement Awards from The Recording Academy and the Rhythm and Blues Foundation. In 2015, Richard received a Rhapsody & Rhythm Award from the National Museum of African American Music for his key role in the formation of popular music genres and helping to bring an end to the racial divide on the music charts and in concert in the mid-1950s changing American culture significantly. "Tutti Frutti" was included in the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in 2010, which stated that his "unique vocalizing over the irresistible beat announced a new era in music".


title: Little Richard

text: Richard Wayne Penniman was born in Macon, Georgia, on December 5, 1932, the third of twelve children of Leva Mae (née Stewart) and Charles "Bud" Penniman. His father was a church deacon and a brick mason, who sold bootlegged moonshine on the side and owned a nightclub called the Tip In Inn. His mother was a member of Macon's New Hope Baptist Church. Initially, his first name was supposed to have been "Ricardo", but an error resulted in "Richard" instead. The Penniman children were raised in a neighborhood of Macon called Pleasant Hill. In childhood, he was nicknamed "Lil' Richard" by his family because of his small and skinny frame. A mischievous child who played pranks on neighbors, he began singing in church and taking piano lessons at a young age. Possibly as a result of complications at birth, he had a slight deformity that left one of his legs shorter than the other. This produced an unusual gait, and he was mocked for his allegedly effeminate appearance.


title: Little Richard

text: His family was very religious and joined various A.M.E., Baptist, and Pentecostal churches, with some family members becoming ministers. He enjoyed the Pentecostal churches the most, because of their charismatic worship and live music. He later recalled that people in his neighborhood sang gospel songs throughout the day during segregation to keep a positive outlook, because "there was so much poverty, so much prejudice in those days". He had observed that people sang "to feel their connection with God" and to wash their trials and burdens away. Gifted with a loud singing voice, he recalled that he was "always changing the key upwards" and that he was once stopped from singing in church for "screaming and hollering" so loud, earning him the nickname "War Hawk". As a child, he would "beat on the steps of the house, and on tin cans and pots and pans, or whatever" while singing, which annoyed neighbors.


title: Little Richard

text: His initial musical influences were gospel performers such as Brother Joe May, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Mahalia Jackson, and Marion Williams. May, a singing evangelist who was known as "the Thunderbolt of the Middle West" because of his phenomenal range and vocal power, inspired Richard to become a preacher. He credited the Clara Ward Singers for one of his distinctive hollers. Richard attended Macon's Hudson High School, where he was a below-average student. He eventually learned to play alto saxophone, joining his school's marching band while in fifth grade. While in high school, he got a part-time job at Macon City Auditorium for local secular and gospel concert promoter Clint Brantley. He sold Coca-Cola to crowds during concerts of star performers of the day such as Cab Calloway, Lucky Millinder, and his favorite singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe.


title: Little Richard

text: In October 1947, Sister Rosetta Tharpe overheard the fourteen-year-old Richard singing her songs before a performance at the Macon City Auditorium. She invited him to open her show. After the show, Tharpe paid him, inspiring him to become a professional performer. Richard stated that his piano style was greatly influenced by Ike Turner's piano intro on "Rocket 88". In 1949, he began performing in Doctor Nubillo's traveling show. Richard was inspired to wear turbans and capes in his career by Nubillo, who also "carried a black stick and exhibited something he called 'the devil's child'—the dried-up body of a baby with claw feet like a bird and horns on its head." Nubillo told Richard he was "gonna be famous" but that he would have to "go where the grass is greener".


title: Little Richard

text: Before entering the tenth grade, Richard left his family home and joined Hudson's Medicine Show in 1949, performing Louis Jordan's "Caldonia". Richard recalled that the song was the first secular R&B song he learned, since his family had strict rules against playing R&B music, which they considered "devil music". Other sources also indicate that Little Richard was influenced by Jordan. In fact, according to one reliable source, the whoop sound on Jordan's record "Caldonia""sounds eerily like the vocal tone Little Richard would adopt" in addition to the "Jordan-style pencil-thin mustache".


title: Little Richard

text: Richard also performed in drag during this time, performing under the name "Princess LaVonne". In 1950, Richard joined his first musical band, Buster Brown's Orchestra, where Brown gave him the name Little Richard. Performing in the minstrel show circuit, Richard, in and out of drag, performed for various vaudeville acts such as Sugarfoot Sam from Alabam, the Tidy Jolly Steppers, the King Brothers Circus, and Broadway Follies. Having settled in Atlanta at this point, Richard began listening to rhythm and blues and frequented Atlanta clubs, including the Harlem Theater and the Royal Peacock where he saw performers such as Roy Brown and Billy Wright onstage. Richard was further influenced by Brown's and Wright's flashy style of showmanship and was even more influenced by Wright's flamboyant persona and showmanship. Inspired by Brown and Wright, he decided to become a rhythm-and-blues singer and after befriending Wright, began to learn how to be an entertainer from him, and began adapting a pompadour hairdo similar to Wright's, as well as styling a pencil mustache, using Wright's brand of facial pancake makeup and wearing flashier clothes.


title: Little Richard

text: Impressed by his singing voice, Wright put him in contact with Zenas Sears, a local DJ. Sears recorded Richard at his station, backed by Wright's band. The recordings led to a contract that year with RCA Victor. Richard recorded a total of eight sides for RCA Victor, including the blues ballad, "Every Hour", which became his first single and a hit in Georgia. The release of "Every Hour" improved his relationship with his father, who began regularly playing the song on his nightclub jukebox. Shortly after the release of "Every Hour", Richard was hired to front Perry Welch and His Orchestra and played at clubs and army bases for $100 a week. Richard left RCA Victor in February 1952 after his records for the label failed to chart; the recordings were marketed with little promotion from RCA Victor, although ads for the records showed up in Billboard Magazine. After Richard began to find success later in the 1950s, RCA Victor reissued the recordings on the budget RCA Camden label. Richard's father, Bud was killed in 1952 after a confrontation outside his club. Richard continued to perform during this time and Clint Brantley agreed to manage Richard's career. Moving to Houston, he formed a band called the Tempo Toppers, performing as part of blues package tours in Southern clubs such as Club Tiajuana in New Orleans and Club Matinee in Houston. Richard signed with Don Robey's Peacock Records in February 1953, recording eight sides, including four with Johnny Otis and his band that were unreleased at the time. Like his venture with RCA Victor, none of his Peacock singles charted despite his growing reputation for his high energy antics onstage. Richard began complaining of monetary issues with Robey, resulting in Richard getting knocked out by Robey during a scuffle. Disillusioned by the record business, Richard returned to Macon in 1954. Struggling with poverty, he settled for work as a dishwasher for Greyhound Lines. While in Macon, he met Esquerita, whose flamboyant onstage persona and dynamic piano playing would deeply influence Richard's approach to performance. That year, he disbanded the Tempo Toppers and formed a harder-driving rhythm and blues band, the Upsetters, which included drummer Charles Connor and saxophonist Wilbert "Lee Diamond" Smith and toured under Brantley's management. In 1954, Richard signed on to a Southern tour with Little Johnny Taylor. The band supported R&B singer Christine Kittrell on some recordings, then began to tour successfully, even without a bass guitarist, forcing drummer Connor to thump "real hard" on his bass drum in order to get a "bass fiddle effect". Around this time, Richard signed a contract to tour with fellow R&B singer Little Johnny Taylor.


title: Little Richard

text: At the suggestion of Lloyd Price, Richard sent a demo to Price's label, Specialty Records, in February 1955. Months passed before Richard got a call from the label. Finally, in September of that year, Specialty owner Art Rupe loaned Richard money to buy out of his Peacock contract and set him to work with producer Robert "Bumps" Blackwell. Upon hearing the demo, Blackwell felt Richard was Specialty's answer to Ray Charles, however, Richard told him he preferred the sound of Fats Domino. Blackwell sent him to New Orleans where he recorded at Cosimo Matassa's J&M Studios, recording there with several of Domino's session musicians, including drummer Earl Palmer and saxophonist Lee Allen. Richard's recordings that day failed to produce much inspiration or interest,


title: Little Richard

text: (although Blackwell saw some promise). Frustrated, Blackwell and Richard went to relax at the Dew Drop Inn nightclub. According to Blackwell, Richard then launched into a risqué dirty blues he titled "Tutti Frutti". Blackwell said he felt the song had hit potential and hired songwriter Dorothy LaBostrie to replace some of Richard's sexual lyrics with less controversial ones. He also changed the microphone placement and pushed Richard's voice forward Recorded in three takes in September 1955, "Tutti Frutti" was released as a single that November and became an instant hit, reaching No. 2 on "Billboard" magazine's Rhythm and Blues Best-Sellers chart and crossing over to the pop charts in both the United States and overseas in the United Kingdom. It reached No. 21 on the "Billboard" Top 100 in America and No. 29 on the British singles chart, eventually selling a million copies.


title: Little Richard

text: Richard's next hit single, "Long Tall Sally" (1956), hit number one on the R&B chart and number thirteen on the Top 100 while reaching the top ten in Britain. Like "Tutti Frutti", it sold over a million copies. Following his success, Richard built up his backup band, The Upsetters, with the addition of saxophonists Clifford "Gene" Burks and leader Grady Gaines, bassist Olsie "Baysee" Robinson and guitarist Nathaniel "Buster" Douglas. Richard began performing on package tours across the United States. Art Rupe described the differences between Richard and a similar hitmaker of the early rock and roll period by stating that, while "the similarities between Little Richard and Fats Domino for recording purposes were close", Richard would sometimes stand up at the piano while he was recording and that onstage, where Domino was "plodding, very slow", Richard was "very dynamic, completely uninhibited, unpredictable, wild. So the band took on the ambience of the vocalist."


title: Little Richard

text: Richard's performances, like most early rock and roll shows, resulted in integrated audience reaction during an era where public places were divided into "white" and "colored" domains. In these package tours, Richard and other artists such as Fats Domino and Chuck Berry would enable audiences of both races to enter the building, albeit still segregated (e.g. blacks on the balcony and whites on the main floor). As his later Producer H.B. Barnum, explained, Richard's performances enabled audiences to come together to dance. Despite broadcasts on television from local supremacist groups such as the North Alabama White Citizens Council warning that rock and roll "brings the races together", Richard's popularity was helping to shatter the myth that black performers could not successfully perform at "white-only venues", especially in the South where racism was most overt. Richard's high-energy antics included lifting his leg while playing the piano, climbing on top of his piano, running on and off the stage and throwing his souvenirs to the audience. He also began using capes and suits studded with multi-colored stones and sequins. Richard said he began to be more flamboyant onstage so no one would think he was "after the white girls".


title: Little Richard

text: Richard claims that a show at Baltimore's Royal Theatre in June 1956 led to women throwing their undergarments onstage at him, resulting in other female fans repeating the action, saying it was "the first time" that had happened to any artist. Richard's show would stop several times that night due to fans being restrained from jumping off the balcony and then rushing to the stage to touch him. Overall, Richard would produce seven singles in the United States alone in 1956, with five of them also charting in the UK, including "Slippin' and Slidin'", "Rip It Up", "Ready Teddy", "The Girl Can't Help It" and "Lucille". Immediately after releasing "Tutti Frutti", which was then protocol for the industry, "safer" white recording artists such as Pat Boone covered the song, sending the song to the top twenty of the charts, several positions higher than Richard's. His fellow rock and roll peers Elvis Presley and Bill Haley also recorded his songs later that same year. Befriending Alan Freed, the disc jockey eventually put him in his "rock and roll" movies such as "Don't Knock the Rock" and "Mister Rock and Roll". Richard was given a larger singing role in the film, "The Girl Can't Help It". That year, he scored more hit success with songs such as "Jenny, Jenny" and "Keep A-Knockin'" the latter becoming his first top ten single on the Billboard Top 100. By the time he left Specialty in 1959, Richard had scored a total of nine top 40 pop singles and seventeen top 40 R&B singles.


title: Little Richard

text: Richard performed at the famed twelfth Cavalcade of Jazz held at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles which was produced by Leon Hefflin, Sr. on September 2, 1956. Also performing that day were Dinah Washington, The Mel Williams Dots, Julie Stevens, Chuck Higgins' Orchestra, Bo Rhambo, Willie Hayden & Five Black Birds, The Premiers, Gerald Wilson and His 20-Pc. Recording Orchestra and Jerry Gray and his Orchestra.


title: Little Richard

text: Shortly after the release of "Tutti Frutti", Richard relocated to Los Angeles. After achieving success as a recording artist and live performer, Richard moved into a wealthy, formerly predominantly white neighborhood, living close to black celebrities such as boxer Joe Louis. Richard's first album, "Here's Little Richard", was released by Specialty in March 1957 and peaked at number thirteen on the "Billboard" Top LPs chart. Similar to most albums released during that era, the album featured six released singles and "filler" tracks. In early 1958, Specialty released his second album, "Little Richard", which didn't chart. In October 1957, Richard embarked on a package tour in Australia with Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran. During the middle of the tour, he shocked the public by announcing he was following a life in the ministry. Richard would claim in his autobiography that during a flight from Melbourne to Sydney that his plane was experiencing some difficulty and he claimed to have seen the plane's red hot engines and felt angels were "holding it up". At the end of his Sydney performance, Richard saw a bright red fireball flying across the sky above him and claimed he was "deeply shaken". Though it was eventually told to him that it was the launching of the first artificial Earth satellite Sputnik 1, Richard took it as a "sign from God" to repent from performing secular music and his wild lifestyle at the time.


title: Little Richard

text: Returning to the States ten days earlier than expected, Richard later read news of his original flight having crashed into the Pacific Ocean as a further sign to "do as God wanted". After a "farewell performance" at the Apollo Theater and a "final" recording session with Specialty later that month, Richard enrolled at Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama, to study theology. Despite his claims of spiritual rebirth, Richard admitted his reasons for leaving were more monetary. During his tenure at Specialty, despite earning millions for the label, Richard complained that he did not know the label had cut the percentage of royalties he was to earn for his recordings. Specialty continued to release Richard recordings, including "Good Golly, Miss Molly" and his unique version of "Kansas City", until 1960. Finally ending his contract with the label, Richard agreed to relinquish any royalties for his material. In 1958, Richard formed the Little Richard Evangelistic Team, traveling across the country to preach. A month after his decision to leave secular music, Richard met Ernestine Harvin, a secretary from Washington, D.C., and the couple married on July 11, 1959. Richard ventured into gospel music, first recording for End Records, before signing with Mercury Records in 1961, where he eventually released "King of the Gospel Singers", in 1962, produced by Quincy Jones, who later remarked that Richard's vocals impressed him more than any other vocalist he had worked with. His childhood heroine, Mahalia Jackson, wrote in the liner notes of the album that Richard "sang gospel the way it should be sung". While Richard was no longer charting in the U.S., with pop music, some of his gospel songs such as "He's Not Just a Soldier" and "He Got What He Wanted", and "Crying in the Chapel", reached the pop charts in the U.S. and the UK.


title: Little Richard

text: In 1962, concert promoter Don Arden persuaded Little Richard to tour Europe after telling him his records were still selling well there. With soul singer Sam Cooke as an opening act, Richard, who featured a teenage Billy Preston in his gospel band, figured it was a gospel tour and, after Cooke's delayed arrival forced him to cancel his show on the opening date, performed only gospel material during the show, leading to boos from the audience expecting Richard to sing his rock and roll hits. The following night, Richard viewed Cooke's well-received performance. Bringing back his competitive drive, Richard and Preston warmed up in darkness before launching into "Long Tall Sally", resulting in frenetic, hysterical responses from the audience. A show at Mansfield's Granada Theatre ended early after fans rushed the stage. Hearing of Richard's shows, Brian Epstein, manager of the Beatles, asked Don Arden to allow his band to open for Richard on some tour dates, to which he agreed. The first show for which the Beatles opened was at New Brighton's Tower Ballroom that October. The following month they, along with Swedish singer Jerry Williams and his band The Violents, opened for Richard at the Star-Club in Hamburg. During this time, Richard advised the group on how to perform his songs and taught Paul McCartney his distinctive vocalizations. Back in the United States, Richard recorded six rock and roll songs with his 1950's band, the Upsetters for Little Star Records, under the name "World Famous Upsetters", hoping this would keep his options open in maintaining his position as a minister.


title: Little Richard

text: In the fall of 1963, Richard was called by a concert promoter to rescue a sagging tour featuring The Everly Brothers, Bo Diddley and the Rolling Stones. Richard agreed and helped to save the tour from flopping. At the end of that tour, Richard was given his own television special for Granada Television titled "The Little Richard Spectacular". The special became a ratings hit and after 60,000 fan letters, was rebroadcast twice. In 1964, now openly re-embracing rock and roll, Richard released "Bama Lama Bama Loo" on Specialty Records. Due to his UK exposure, the song reached the top twenty there but only climbed to number 82 in the U.S. Later in the year, he signed with Vee-Jay Records, then on its dying legs, to release his "comeback" album, "Little Richard Is Back". Due to the arrival of the Beatles and other British bands as well as the rise of soul labels such as Motown and Stax Records and the popularity of James Brown, Richard's new releases were not well promoted or well received by radio stations. In November/December 1964, Jimi Hendrix joined Richard's Upsetters band as a full member.


title: Little Richard

text: In December 1964, Richard brought Hendrix and childhood friend and piano teacher Eskew Reeder to a New York studio to re-record an album's worth of his greatest hits. He went on tour with his new group of Upsetters, to promote the album .


title: Little Richard

text: In the Spring of 1965, Richard took Hendrix and Billy Preston to a New York studio where they recorded the Don Covay soul ballad, "I Don't Know What You've Got (But It's Got Me)", which became a number 12 R&B hit.


title: Little Richard

text: Around this time, Richard and Jimi appeared in a show starring Soupy Sales at the Brooklyn Paramount, New York. Richard's flamboyance and drive for dominance reportedly got him thrown off the show.


title: Little Richard

text: Hendrix and Richard clashed over the spotlight, as well as Hendrix's tardiness, wardrobe and stage antics. Hendrix also complained over not being properly paid by Richard. In early July 1965, Richard's brother Robert Penniman "fired" Jimi (however, Jimi wrote to his father, Al Hendrix, that he quit Richard as "you can't live on promises when you're on the road, so I had to cut that mess aloose". Hendrix had not been paid "for five-and-a-half weeks" and was owed 1,000 dollars. Hendrix then rejoined the Isley Brothers' band, the IB Specials. Richard later signed with Modern Records, releasing a modest charter, "Do You Feel It?" before leaving for Okeh Records in early 1966. His former Specialty labelmate Larry Williams produced two albums for Richard on Okeh - the studio release "The Explosive Little Richard", which utilised a Motown-influenced sound and produced the modest charters "Poor Dog" and "Commandments of Love" and "" which returned him to the album charts. Richard was later scathing about this period, declaring Larry Williams "the worst producer in the world". In 1967, Richard signed with Brunswick Records but after clashing with the label over musical direction, he left the label the following year.