Biography:

James Madison was the fourth president of the United States, 1809-1817, co-writer of the Federalist Papers, an active member of the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, and a framer of the Bill of Rights. Madison served as President Thomas Jefferson’s Secretary of State before being elected president himself. Madison was president during the War of 1812, during which the British invaded Washington, DC, and burned the White House and the Capitol. Nonetheless, by the end of the fighting, many Americans looked to military and naval victories such as the ones celebrated in the political cartoons of William Charles and other artists as evidence that the war had been a success for the new nation.