"The Federalist Papers -- 85 essays published in the winter of 1787-8 in the New York press -- are some of the most crucial and defining documents in American political history, laying out the principles that still guide our democracy today. The three authors -- Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay -- were respectively the first Secretary of the Treasury, the fourth President, and the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in American...

A comprehensive look at President James Madison within the historical and cultural context of his times.

Many people know the story of Dolley Madison, one of the first First Ladies to live in the White House, and how she saved the famous painting of George Washington as the British attacked and burned Washington, D. C. But few know what happened next. With the U.S. soldiers in retreat and Dolley fleeing, what drove the British soldiers out of the city they were intent on destroying? Was it really a tornado? Or was it something else?

It's unimaginable today, even for a generation that saw the Twin Towers fall and the Pentagon attacked. It's unimaginable because in 1814 enemies didn't fly overhead, they marched through the streets; and for 26 hours in August, the British enemy marched through Washington, D.C. and set fire to government buildings, including the U.S. Capitol and the White House. Relying on first-hand accounts, historian Jane Hampton Cook weaves together several different...

"How do you solve a problem like James Madison? The fourth president is one of the most confounding figures in early American history -- his political trajectory seems almost intentionally inconsistent. He was both for and against a strong federal government. He wrote about the dangers of political parties in the Federalist papers and then helped to found the Republican party just a few years later. And though he has frequently been celebrated as...