James Madison appears at Cottage Grove Place
It’s Presidents Month! Who best to celebrate with than James Madison, 4th President of the United States. Dick McGaughy has portrayed President Madison for the Hoover Presidential Library since the year 1999. In the above photo he is conversing with a local historian before engaging the audience in a discussion about the Constitution.
HistoryAnecdote: In 1787, only four years after the treaty that ended the Revolutionary War, we created a new government under a constitution. We already had a government. Why did we need a new one?
The Articles of Confederation had created a weak central government binding the states into a league of friendship with each other. The states were separate nations for most purposes. We hoped that this would be the best way to safeguard our liberties. But quickly many difficult problems arose that had not been anticipated. The central government was not able to correct them.
To improve our government, approval was given for a meeting in Philadelphia in 1787. I wrote the Virginia Plan, which was the basis for all of the discussions during the meeting. The constitution was developed from the plan. Because of that, many people call me the Father of the Constitution. However, I would like to emphasize that the proposed constitution we signed on September 17, 1787 was the product of many hands and many heads. There were many changes, and I hope, improvements from my Virginia Plan.
I am sure many of you remember the first words in the constitution. “We the people of the United States…”
Thanks Dick! Oh, I mean President Madison.