Presidency of James Madison

The Madison Cabinet
Office	Name	Term
President	James Madison	1809–1817
Vice President	George Clinton	1809–1812
	Elbridge Gerry	1813–1814
Secretary of State	Robert Smith	1809–1811
	James Monroe	1811–1817
Secretary of Treasury	Albert Gallatin	1809–1814
	George W. Campbell	1814
	Alexander J. Dallas	1814–1816
	William H. Crawford	1816–1817
Secretary of War	William Eustis	1809–1813
	John Armstrong, Jr.	1813–1814
	James Monroe	1814–1815
	William H. Crawford	1815–1816
	George Graham	1816–1817
Attorney General	Caesar A. Rodney	1809–1811
	William Pinkney	1811–1814
	Richard Rush	1814–1817
Secretary of the Navy	Paul Hamilton	1809–1813
	William Jones	1813–1814
	Benjamin W. Crowninshield	1814–1817

The presidency of James Madison began on March 4, 1809, when James Madison was inaugurated as President of the United States, and ended on March 4, 1817. Madison, the fourth United States president, took office after defeating Charles Cotesworth Pinckney decisively in the 1808 presidential election. He was re-elected four years later, defeating DeWitt Clinton in the 1812 election. His presidency was dominated by the War of 1812 with the United Kingdom. Madison was succeeded by Secretary of State James Monroe, a fellow member of the Democratic-Republican Party.

During his 8-year presidency, domestic affairs took a backseat to foreign affairs. After a series of diplomatic protests and a trade embargo against the United Kingdom failed to convince the British to cease attacks upon American shipping, and to recognize the rights of the neutral American ships, Madison led the U.S. into the War of 1812. The war was an administrative morass, as the United States had neither a strong army nor financial system. The British entered Washington and set fire to the White House and the Capitol. However, a few notable naval and military victories, climaxed by General Andrew Jackson's triumph at New Orleans, convinced Americans that the war had been gloriously successful.

One domestic issue that did stand somewhat apart from the war itself was the struggle over the rechartering of the Bank of the United States, whose charter was up for renewal in 1811. Opposition to the bank's rechartering emanated from two interests: Old Republicans who characterized the bank as both constitutionally illegitimate and a direct threat to Jeffersonian agrarianism, state sovereignty and the institution of slavery; and private state banking interests opposed to the U.S. Bank's power to control the nation's financial business. When these interests killed the recharter drive, the U.S. confronted the British without the means to support war loans or to easily obtain government credit. In 1816, with Madison's support, the Second Bank was chartered with a twenty-year term.

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