In the summer of 1787, leaders from across the United States gathered in Philadelphia for the stated purpose of fixing flaws in the Articles of Confederation. But in the minds of nationalists like James Madison, fixing issues with the Articles was not the answer. What was needed was an entirely new form of government that could allow the fledgling nation to grow. This convention, known at the time as the Philadelphia or Federal Convention, was largely organized by Madison and Alexander Hamilton and the government created at that gathering bore Madison’s indelible stamp.

When James Madison graduated from the College of New Jersey in 1771, he was a man in search of a vocation. Madison had enjoyed studying law but did not want to become a lawyer; he had grown up on a plantation but had no desire to become a farmer and detested the slave culture inherent on a southern plantation. Fortunately, his family’s money and support allowed him time to figure it all out. Ultimately, Madison realized that his true calling was the American cause, and, to that end, James Madison devoted the remainder of his life.

James Madison was one of our nation’s most important Founding Fathers and played a critical role in shaping the United States. Known to history as the Father of the Constitution, Madison was not a dynamic leader of men but was perhaps the most useful subordinate of our Founding Fathers.

When the Democratic-Republicans came to power in the election of 1800, the Jefferson administration effectively shut down and disbanded both the United States Army and Navy. As a result, when American merchant ships were abused and seized as contraband of war on the high seas and in British and French ports during the Napoleonic wars, the United States was helpless to respond.

One of the most prominent grievances that led the United States to declare war on Great Britain in 1812 was the impressment of sailors serving on American merchant ships by the Royal Navy. Although this practice continued until after the Napoleonic wars ended in 1815, it truly reached its ugly climax in the summer of 1807 with the infamous Chesapeake-Leopard affair, a naval encounter that brought the two countries to the brink of war.

Many people have called the War of 1812 the “second American Revolution,” and while that phrase has some merit, the facts do not fully support the assertion. It is true that in both cases America’s enemy was Great Britain and the main catalyst that took us to war was American animosity resulting from perceived British wrongs, but the similarities essentially end there.

The first few decades of the 19th century were an exciting time for the American judiciary, at least as exciting as anything involving attorneys and judges can be. From the time Thomas Jefferson was sworn in as President on March 4, 1801, through the presidency of Andrew Jackson, there was a tremendous antagonism between the populist Executive branch and the Supreme Court, the last bastion of Federalism. This unprecedented tension between the Executive and the Judiciary made for frequent and intense conflicts, arguably more frequent and more intense than during any other period in our country’s history.  

Aaron Burr's grand scheme to create his own country, possibly in Mexico or from United States territory, began to collapse late in 1806, practically before it ever got started. This empire in the sky built largely in Burr’s fertile mind was swiftly coming to an end.

Aaron Burr was one of the most talented of our founding fathers, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Continental Army, an accomplished attorney in New York, a United States Senator, and the third Vice President. But Burr also happens to be the only sitting or former President or Vice President ever tried for treason in arguably the most important criminal trial in American history.

There has been only one instance in our nation’s history of a United States Supreme Court Justice being impeached, and that occurred in 1804 during a significant political tussle over the independence and power of the judiciary. The justice in question was Samuel Chase and his alleged crimes seem trivial in retrospect, but Chase was simply a pawn in an ongoing battle of wills between two American icons, President Thomas Jefferson and Chief Justice John Marshall that took place in the early 1800s. And the decision reached in his case would have a profound impact on the future of the country. 

Marbury v Madison is the most consequential legal decision in our nation’s history because it established the concept of judicial review in the United States. This principal grants to the judiciary the responsibility to review laws for their constitutionality and gives it the power to void legislation it finds repugnant to the Constitution. That decision was rendered by John Marshall, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 1803, but the road to that decision extends further back.

John Marshall's active service in the Continental Army ended in December 1779, although he did not officially retire from the military until February 1781. Marshall went home to Virginia to await his next command, anxious to get back into the fight, but that call never came as the war in the north wound down.

In early December 1775, Major Thomas Marshall and his son, Lieutenant John Marshall, and the rest of the Culpepper Minutemen were ordered to join Colonel William Woodford at Great Bridge, a small village nine miles south of Norfolk. Here, in the first fight of the American Revolution in Virginia, the young Lieutenant from the frontier would get his initial taste of battle.

John Marshall is perhaps the most impactful and influential man in American history who was never president. Almost single handedly, John Marshall created our national judiciary and established it as a branch of government co-equal to the legislative and executive branches.

After the Federalists were voted out of office in the fall of 1800 by Thomas Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican Party, the need for reform to the judicial system, the last stronghold of Federalist authority, became the most pressing concern of the outgoing Adams administration.

One of the foundational governing principles of the Constitution created at the Philadelphia Convention in the summer of 1787 was a separation of powers between the national legislative, executive, and judicial branches. But while significant operating concepts and responsibilities were set forth for Congress and the Executive in the Constitution, the delegates barely addressed the specific structure of the Judicial branch.

The court system in Colonial America, not surprisingly, mirrored that of Great Britain and became one of the great sources of discontent as American colonists moved towards independence. The main issue was over who would control or have the greatest influence on the judiciary.

Commodore Edward Preble assembled his considerable American fleet just outside Tripoli harbor in August 1804, determined to punish the city and its corsairs, and force Yusuf Karamanli, the Dey of Tripoli, to sue for peace.

William Eaton led the first successful invasion of a foreign land by the United States when in 1804 he led a handful of Marines and a hodgepodge assembly of Christian mercenaries and unruly Arabs to conquer the Tripolitan port city of Derne.

Captain William Bainbridge managed to run the USS Philadelphia hard aground on a submerged reef in Tripoli harbor on October 31, 1803, and this pristine frigate, one of the top ships in the United States Navy was now in grave danger of falling into the hands of the Tripolitan pirates.