Henry's friends sought to accomplish this by means of the device afterward known as “gerrymandering”; but the attempt failed, and Madison was elected to the first national house of representatives. His great knowledge, and the part he had played in building up the framework of the government, made him from the outset the leading member of the house. His first motion was one for raising a revenue by tariff and tonnage duties. He offered the resolution for creating the executive departments of foreign affairs, of the treasury, and of war. He proposed twelve amendments to the constitution, in order to meet the objection, urged in many quarters, that that instrument did not contain a bill of rights. The first ten of these amendments were adopted and became part of the constitution in the year 1791.
The first division of political parties under the constitution began to show itself in the debates upon Hamilton's financial measures as secretary of the treasury, and in this division we see Madison acting as leader of the opposition. By many writers this has been regarded as indicating a radical change of attitude on his part, and sundry explanations have been offered to account for the presumed inconsistency. He has been supposed to have succumbed to the personal influence of Jefferson, and to have yielded his own convictions to the desires and prejudices of his constituents. Such
