The primary documents from Madison's early years — 1772 to 1776 — begin with a letter from a twenty-one year old uncertain about his direction and end with a twenty-five year old proposing the language of the First Amendment in the Virginia Convention. The documents are in the archive.
James Madison was born March 16, 1751 at Port Conway, Virginia, the first of twelve children of James Madison Sr. and Eleanor Conway Madison. The family estate was Montpelier in Orange County, Virginia. He received his early education from tutors at Montpelier and then at Donald Robertson's school in King and Queen County — where he studied Latin, Greek, French, mathematics, and geography. His father's library at Montpelier gave him access to books that most Virginians of his generation did not have.
In 1769 Madison chose to attend the College of New Jersey in Princeton rather than the College of William and Mary — which most Virginia planters' sons attended. William and Mary was an Anglican institution, controlled by the established church. Princeton, under the presidency of John Witherspoon, was non-denominational. Witherspoon was a Presbyterian minister and a Scottish Enlightenment thinker whose courses in moral philosophy, rhetoric, and law drew students from across the colonies.
Madison completed Princeton's four-year course in two years — by studying through the summers and taking an accelerated program. He graduated in September 1771 at age twenty. He stayed for an additional year at Princeton, studying Hebrew and theology under Witherspoon. He returned to Montpelier in April 1772, age twenty-one, without a clear profession. He had considered the ministry but did not pursue it. He read law but did not practice it. He described himself in letters as unwell and uncertain about his future direction.
The earliest surviving letter in the Bradford correspondence is dated November 9, 1772 — seven months after Madison returned from Princeton. He was twenty-one years old. The letter is at Founders Online.
I am too dull and infirm now to look out for any extraordinary things in this world for I think my sensations for many months past have intimated to me not to expect a long or healthy life, yet it may be better with me after some time tho I hardly dare expect it and therefore have little spirit and alacrity to set about any thing that requires much labour and diligence... I have had too little spirit and alacrity to go through a course of reading that I had prescribed to myself. I intend however with the assistance of my Parents to go through a regular course of reading.
Bradford was Madison's closest friend from Princeton — he had been valedictorian of the class ahead of Madison's. The correspondence between them from 1772 to 1775 is the primary record of Madison's intellectual development in the years before he entered politics. Bradford went on to study law in Philadelphia. Madison stayed at Montpelier reading, observing Virginia politics, and writing.
Virginia in 1774 had an established church — the Anglican Church of England. Baptist ministers who preached without a license from the colonial government were subject to arrest. In the counties around Montpelier, ministers were being jailed for preaching to their congregations. Madison had observed this. On January 24, 1774 — two years before he entered the Virginia Convention — he wrote Bradford in Philadelphia about it. He was twenty-two years old.
That diabolical Hell conceived principle of persecution rages among some and to their eternal Infamy the Clergy can furnish their Quota of Imps for such business. This vexes me the most of any thing whatever. There are at this [time] in the adjacent County not less than 5 or 6 well meaning men in close Gaol for publishing their religious Sentiments which in the main are very orthodox. I have neither patience to hear talk or think of any thing relative to this matter, for I have squabbled and scolded abused and ridiculed so long about it, to so little purpose that I am without common patience. So I leave you to pity me and pray for Liberty of Conscience to revive among us.
Bradford replied on March 4, 1774, writing that Pennsylvania had no such persecution — that religious liberty in Pennsylvania was broader than in Virginia. Madison replied on April 1, 1774, asking Bradford directly: "Is an Ecclesiastical Establishment absolutely necessary to support civil society in a supream Government? and how far it is hurtful to a dependant State?" Both of Bradford's replies and Madison's April 1 follow-up are at Founders Online.
Our Assembly is to meet the first of May When It is expected something will be done in behalf of the Dissenters: Petitions I hear are already forming among the Persecuted Baptists and I fancy it is in the thoughts of the Presbyterians also to intercede for greater liberty in matters of Religion. For my part I can not help being very doubtful of their succeeding in the Attempt.
The Virginia Assembly did not act. The Baptist ministers remained in jail. Madison would not have legislative power to change this for two more years.
In April 1776, Madison was elected to the Virginia Convention — the body that would draft Virginia's new state constitution and its declaration of rights. He was twenty-five years old. George Mason had drafted the Declaration of Rights, including Article XVI on religion. Mason's draft read: "that all men shou'd enjoy the fullest Toleration in the Exercise of Religion, according to the Dictates of Conscience."
Madison proposed an amendment. He objected to the word "toleration" — which implied that one religion was established and others were being permitted by its grace. He substituted language asserting that religious freedom was an inherent right, not a grant from a dominant denomination. His amendment, as adopted on June 12, 1776, reads:
That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it, can be directed by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore, all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity, towards each other.
"all men shou'd enjoy the fullest Toleration in the Exercise of Religion, according to the Dictates of Conscience."
"all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience."
The amendment is documented at Founders Online at `founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-01-02-0054-0003` and described in detail at Encyclopedia Virginia. The final adopted text of the Virginia Declaration of Rights is at Yale Avalon. The distinction between Mason's "toleration" and Madison's "free exercise" is the linguistic seed of the First Amendment's religion clauses, which Madison drafted thirteen years later.