Madison, James 253 rebel’s execution Since Cartier’s death in 1873, Macdonald could no longer depend on a strong French voice to maintain harmony between French and English Canadians Shortly after a difficult 1891 reelection, Macdonald suffered a stroke and died a week later Thousands attended his state funeral in Ottawa His body was taken by train to Kingston where Canada’s first national leader was buried in a family plot in Cataraqui Cemetery See also political parties in Canada; railroads in North America Further Reading: Creighton, Donald G John A Macdonald Toronto: Macmillan, 1953; Smith, Cynthia M., and Jack McLeod, ed Sir John A.: An Anecdotal Life of John A Macdonald Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1989 Marsha E Ackermann Madison, James (1751–1836) statesman and American president James Madison was born in Port Conway, Virginia, to James Madison, Sr., and Eleanor Rose Conway They owned a prosperous tobacco plantation, run by slaves, at the Montpelier estates in Orange County The eldest of 12 siblings, Madison was sickly as a child, but excelled in school and entered the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) in 1769 and graduated in 1771 Madison returned to Virginia where he engaged in local politics He was too frail for military service himself during the American Revolution, but in 1774 was appointed to the Orange County, Virginia, Committee of Safety—a local wartime provisional government—and was heavily engaged in fundraising for the county militia In 1776 he was elected to the Virginia Convention and worked on the state constitution In the same year Madison entered the Virginia House of Delegates, where he met Thomas Jefferson From 1777 to 1780 he was a member of the Governor’s Council before being elected to the Continental Congress in 1779 There he became a spokesman for stronger central government Under the Articles of Confederation each state remained sovereign, while the weak central government could not even raise enough revenue to pay the expenses generated by the American Revolution Another major deficiency of the Articles of Confederation, in Madison’s eyes, was James Madison was elected the fourth president of the United States in 1808, beating Federalist candidate Charles Pinckney that it tied states, not individual citizens, to the federal government Further, any amendment was impossible, since it required the unanimous consent of the states In 1783 three years after the British surrender, the Treaty of Paris was signed and Madison left the Continental Congress Back in Virginia, he studied law and entered into real estate and served in the Virginia House of Delegates again, from 1784 to 1786, where he drafted Virginia’s declaration on religious freedom In 1786 Madison was Virginia’s delegate to the Annapolis Convention on interstate trade, where he decided to work for a revision of the U.S Constitution and a stronger federal government, expressed in his Virginia Plan Again a member of the Continental Congress from 1787 to 1788, he joined forces with Alexander Hamilton and Jon Jay Together they wrote the Federalist Papers, published in newspapers