Founding Rivals: Madison vs. Monroe, The Bill of Rights and the Election that Saved a Nation

by Chris DeRose

Regnery Publishing, Inc.; ISBN: 159698192X

Hardcover - 336 pages (November 2011)

Madison vs. Monroe: The Election that Saved America

Picture this: an America with intense political partisanship, crushing national debt owed to foreign nations, citizens losing their homes to foreclosure, and a nation in danger of separating at the seams.

No, it’s not 2011, it’s 1789 and the fate of America as a young nation rests on the race for the congressional seat in Virginia’s 5th district.

In Founding Rivals: Madison vs. Monroe, the Bill of Rights, and the Election That Saved a Nation, author Chris DeRose reveals one of the most important but untold stories in American history—the tale of the high-stakes political battle between two future presidents—James Madison and James Monroe.

Friends and political allies for most of their lives, Madison and Monroe found themselves on opposite sides of the battle over the Constitution and the fate of a fledgling nation in the extraordinary story of their 1789 congressional race.

This was a race that determined the future of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the very definition of the United States of America.

In Founding Rivals you will learn:

• Why the 1789 race between Madison and Monroe was more important than most presidential elections.
• How Madison came from behind to win a narrow victory (by a margin of only 336 votes) in a district gerrymandered against him.
• How the Bill of Rights would never have survived the First Congress if Monroe had won in 1789, and how Monroe convinced Madison of the importance of the Bill of Rights.
• Why James Monroe opposed ratification of the Constitution.
• The crippling issues facing our country are not new and all it takes is one man to make a difference.

A race and story that has been largely ignored by historians, Founding Rivals relives the campaign, retraces the candidates’ footsteps, and offers the first insightful, comprehensive history of the most important congressional race in American history, and the only congressional contest in which two future presidents ran against each other.

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