Instead, he returned home to Virginia, depressed and uncertain what to do with his life.
Begins Political Career
Madison regained his zest for living in 1774, at age twenty-three, when he began serving on Orange County's committee of safety, which was responsible for local defense. Citizens of Virginia and Massachusetts were among the first to imagine the possibility of a war of independence between the colonies and Great Britain. Madison was part of a group of early Virginia patriots that included Patrick Henry (see entry). They enthusiastically supported the separation of the American colonies from England.
Madison's political career moved to a new level with his appointment to the 1776 Virginia Convention. Virginia was always a leader in discussing individual rights and liberties and passing laws to guarantee them, and Madison played a large role in getting such laws passed. In May 1776 he and the other delegates at the Virginia Convention voted to propose a resolution to the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Congress was a meeting of representatives from all thirteen colonies; the topic of discussion was the tense situation between the colonies and Great Britain. The Virginia resolution stated: "Resolved, that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."
Madison helped write the Virginia constitution, which was adopted on June 28, 1776.
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