This is an IHeart podcast.

On this episode of News World, the lives of these men are essential to understand the American

form of government and our ideals of liberty. The founding fathers all played key roles

in securing American independence from Great Britain

and in the creation of the government of the United States of America.

And now the life of James Madison.

And I have to say, having visited his home, that he's a remarkable figure.

He is, in some ways, one of the most interesting of all the founding fathers.

Because he's so complicated, he's so smart, his real contributions are all cerebral.

He studied, he read, he thought, he wrote, and over time, he had an enormous impact at every level. Remember, the Democratic Republican Party that he and Jefferson founded still exists as the Democratic Party, the longest surviving political institution in the world today. The Bill of Rights is at the heart of our freedom. And he was the guiding force.

In fact, his role in the first Congress was amazing. He literally drafted constitutions,

thought about it, it was sort of a hobby. And so he was tremendously prepared to help write

the Constitution when the founding fathers met in Philadelphia. And I always try to

remind people, the Federalist papers are not some stuffy academic document that we read them

nowadays really as sort of policy in a way that is kind of abstract and good for graduate students,

but not a hobby for most people. But the Federalist

papers were written as the most important pamphlet and political history. Now, they're very

complicated. They're long. And Madison wrote some of the most important of the Federalist

papers, convincing people to have two different things, that they needed a federal

government because the individual states would only be gobbled up by France and Britain and

Spain. So they had to come together to survive. And at the same time, you could write a

constitution that protected you from your own government. And it's important to remember,

...