Founding Rivals

DeRose, an attorney and veteran political strategist, uses contemporary sources to trace the development of James Madison's and James Monroe's position on the U.S. Constitution and how they opposed each other for a Virginia congressional seat in 1789. While Madison was a significant contributor to and supporter of the Constitution, Monroe was more suspicious of it, largely owing to his worries about federal powers trumping states' rights. Monroe felt that granting a federal power of direct taxation was unnecessary and unjust, and the Constitution did not include a Bill of Rights at the time to preserve liberties like religious freedom. In covering this territory, DeRose doesn't offer anything new until he moves to the congressional election between the two—and this, which he doesn't cover until two-thirds of the way through the book, would have been fine as an article. DeRose is correct that the stakes were high in that election: if Monroe had won, the Bill of Rights might not have passed the First Congress as Monroe would not have been the advocate that Madison was. But DeRose tries to build up some personal drama between the two that didn't exist, since both admitted that the election did not affect their friendship.