front cover of James Madison
James Madison
Liberty's Advocate
John P. Kaminski
Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2018
A Word Portrait of an American Founder.

America has had few political thinkers who have rivalled James Madison. The son of a wealthy planter, Madison was an unhealthy child and was beset by physical infirmities throughout his long life, and grew into a cerebral man. Madison left Virginia to attend the College of New Jersey, but returned to his native state after completing his studies. Though he aspired to be a college professor, Madison instead went into public service and became one of the most influential, guiding voices of the Founding Era. Madison’s Virginia Plan would be used as a blueprint for the Constitutional Convention, where the Articles of Confederation would be replaced with a new Constitution that bore traces of Madison’s influence throughout. 

Editor John Kaminski has gathered a remarkable collection of quotations by and about James Madison for the third installment of his Word Portraits of America’s Founders series. Through these words by and about Madison, we learn more about one of the country’s most influential Founding Fathers, who held a lifelong commitment to liberty and opposed oppression.
 
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front cover of John F. Kennedy and the Liberal Persuasion
John F. Kennedy and the Liberal Persuasion
John M. Murphy
Michigan State University Press, 2019
The first serious study of his discourse in nearly a quarter century, John F. Kennedy and the Liberal Persuasion examines the major speeches of Kennedy’s presidency, from his famed but controversial inaugural address to his belated but powerful demand for civil rights. It argues that his eloquence flowed from his capacity to imagine anew the American liberal tradition—Kennedy insisted on the intrinsic moral worth of each person, and his language sought to make that ideal real in public life. This book focuses on that language and argues that presidential words matter. Kennedy’s legacy rests in no small part on his rhetoric, and here Murphy maintains that Kennedy’s words made him a most consequential president. By grounding the study of these speeches both in the texts themselves and in their broader linguistic and historical contexts, the book draws a new portrait of President Kennedy, one that not only recognizes his rhetorical artistry but also places him in the midst of public debates with antagonists and allies, including Dwight Eisenhower, Barry Goldwater, Richard Russell, James Baldwin, Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert Kennedy. Ultimately this book demonstrates how Kennedy’s liberal persuasion defined the era in which he lived and offers a powerful model for Americans today.
 
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