James Madison

James Madison is called the Father of the Constitution. He arrived at the 1787 convention in Philadelphia with a plan for a stronger national government, kept the most complete notes of the debates, wrote a large share of the Federalist essays, and then drafted the Bill of Rights. He served as the fourth president, through the War of 1812, when British troops burned Washington.

Before all that he was a student at the College of New Jersey, which became Princeton, and graduated in 1771. On the Princeton walk you pass the ground he knew around Nassau Hall and Cannon Green. In Savannah, Madison Square carries his name; it is one of the prettiest of the squares, with a monument to Sergeant William Jasper, and a good place to sit in the shade.