16 March 1751 A.D. “Father of the U.S. Constitution” is Born—James Madison
16 March 1751 A.D. “Father of the U.S. Constitution” is Born—James Madison Editors. “`Father of the Constitution’ is born.” History. 2009. http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/father-of-the-constitution-is-born . Accessed 12 Mar 2015. On this day in 1751, James Madison, drafter of the Constitution, recorder of the Constitutional Convention, author of the Federalist Papers and fourth president of the United States, is born on a plantation in Virginia. Madison first distinguished himself as a student at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), where he successfully completed a four-year course of study in two years and, in 1769, helped found the American Whig Society, the second literary and debate society at Princeton (and the world), to rival the previously established Cliosophic Society. Madison returned to Virginia with intellectual accolades but poor health in 1771. By 1776, he was sufficiently recovered to serve for three years in the legislature ...