The Madisons: America's First Power Couple (The True Story of James & Dolley Madison) (Historical Biographies of Famous People);

Dolley and James Madison were America's original “power couple. “The nation’s most underrated Founding Father, James was everywhere in the early republic. He passed the nation’s first religious freedom law, and did more than any other man to draft and ratify our Constitution. Even today, judges parse each word of his Bill of Rights to determine the constitutionality of abortion, gun control, campaign finance reform, the death penalty, and other hot-button topics. After sparking the creation of the Federalist Party with his Constitution, he then revised his views and became the first leader of the Democratic-Republicans, pioneering the modern two-party system. Meanwhile, his wife Dolley became a major power broker in her own right, mastering unofficial channels and the politics of high society to become a vital unifying force—one that probably tipped the close presidential election of 1812.

This groundbreaking joint biography traces James and Dolley’s lives apart as well as together, through war and peace, from the glories of ratification to the blunders of the 1807 embargo. Through Alexander Kennedy's intimate portraits of both husband and wife, we discover anew how these extraordinary individuals united their talents to shape and unify the fragile young nation.

"It is one of my sources of happiness never to desire a knowledge of other people's business." - Dolley Madison

Buy Now to Discover:

• The true story of Dolley rescuing George Washington’s painting from the British.
• The backroom deals that made the US Constitution possible.
• The unique, lifelong partnership of James Madison and Thomas Jefferson.
• James’s bitter rivalry with Alexander Hamilton.
• Dolley’s role in defusing an international incident that might have led to war.
• Discussion of the Madisons’ views on slavery, including the oral tradition that James had an illegitimate child with one of his slaves.
• The major battles of the War of 1812, America’s “Second War of Independence”.