American Presidents - James Madison and Andrew Jackson

Posted by Tel Asiado Mar 16, 2009

Did you know that these two former American presidents follow the other one's birthday? Andrew Jackson was born on March 13 (1767) and James Madison, on March 14 (1751.)

James Madison (March 16, 1751 – June 28, 1836) was an American politician and political philosopher who became the 4^th President of the U.S. (1809-1817.) He was born in Port, Conway, Virginia. He graduated from Princeton University in 1771. He married Dolley Payne Todd in 1794.

He was one of the founding fathers of the United States and also the "Father of the Constitution" having been the principal author of the Constitution document. Madison was the first president to have served in the U.S. Congress. He drafted basic laws and was responsible for the first ten amendments to the Constitution and was regarded as the "Father of the Bill of Rights."

Madison's most distinctive belief was that there should exist checks and balances in a government to protect individual rights from the tyranny of the majority.

Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 - June 8, 1845) was the 7th president of the U.S. (1829-1837). Famous for his toughness, he was nicknamed "Old Hickory." Jackson was born in the Waxhaw settlement near the border between North and South Carolina. Known for his long miltary career, he was governor of Florida (1821), commander of the AMerican forces at the Battle of New Orleans (1815), and leading figure in the 1820s and 1830s era, shaping a modern Jacksonian democracy.

Orphaned at the age of 13, he wandered to western North Carolina, now Tennessee, and admitted to the bar in later years. In 1788 he settled in Nashville and married Rachel Donelson Robards. As his career progressed along with the development of the state of Tennessee, Jackson was the first president mainly associated with the frontier. He became a delegate to the Tennessee constitutional convention, and served as US representative and senator, and at one point, also a judge in the superior court of Tennessee.