It is not easy to appreciate James Madison's importance to American history. His writing avoided the wit and informality that Franklin excelled in, and he left no record of himself by which he could be more intimately known. He led no armies and gave no stirring speeches; his work as the major contributor to the U.S. Constitution took place in long sessions of intricate negotiations behind closed doors. Even in his greatest published work, The Federalist, he was a pseudonymous collaborator with two other men. In his own time and afterward he was thought by many to be a mere subordinate of his older Virginia colleague Thomas Jefferson. His virtues as congressman, secretary of state, and finally as the fourth president were those of prudence, self-control, a broad sense of history, and a loyalty to the republican ideology he held to all his life; none of these...