Research On The Relationship Between Jefferson And Madison

Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, personage of the early stage, are the most famouspoliticians and thinkers in American history. Both of them, assuming very important headshipsand becoming the men of great merit, had experienced and witnessed the process of theindependence and the foundation of the United States. For about half a century, they hadestablished profound friendship and carried along the great cooperation in politics. The researchon their relationship could help us comprehend more profoundly some questions about the earlyAmerican history such as, independence, formulating constitution, inside and outside policies ofthe government, party politics, Democracy of Jefferson. It can help us understanding the orbitof the early historical development, the evolvement of the political system, the formulation ofthe political and cultural tradition in early American history.The Domestic and international historiography circle had done a lot of thorough researcheson the case study and published several related books. However, they do not have any profoundresearches on their relationship. This paper will take the Materialist conception of history as theguidance and use the production of the former research for references to do the intensive andcomprehensive research on their relationship for the further step. This paper will mainly discussthe significant events they participated together and their relationship, taking the great eventsthey experienced together as the central points and connecting them by the temporaldevelopment. It divided the evolvement process into four phases: form the independence to thefoundation of the government, the ruling stage of the Federal party, the stage of the DemocraticRepublican Party, withdrawing from the political arena.During the American Revolution, the two men gradually form close opinion on revolution,becoming the first generation of revolutionaries. Jefferson drafted the Declaration ofIndependence, becoming one of the generally acknowledged revolutionary leaders. On thepolitical stage of Virginia, they promoted the democratic reform of the State of Virginiatogether. They met during the reform and developed a profound friendship. In the 1780s,although they served the cause of freedom of American in different fields, their thoughtsdeveloped with time and matured step by step through frequent communication, and thefriendship and the cooperation between the two deepened and consolidated. During the stage ofmaking the constitution, the two men had disagreements but they reached compromise andagreement through frank communication and made great contribution to the passing of theFederal Constitution. Madison was respected as the "Father of the Constitution"and Jeffersonmade great effort to add the Bill of Rights into the Constitution.After the foundation of the Federal Government, Jefferson and Madison reunited on thedomestic political stage and separately acted the important headships in the new government,which created conditions for them to realize their political dreams. Friendship and cooperationbetween two of them were firmed and developed in this career. Because of the differences inpolitical philosophy, beliefs in establishing a state, Jefferson and Madison began to open thewarm discussion with Hamilton on economical policies, diplomatic principles etc. The politicalparty politics came into being and played a great role gradually in American politics. During theAdams Stage, the government passed four laws which infringed on human rights, such as the...