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What was James Madison’s presidential campaign slogan?
Thank you for your question; several staff members in the History, Travel and Maps Department have worked on it. Unfortunately the short answer to your question is that he didn’t have one in the same way that campaign slogans are used today.
What we think of as a typical modern presidential campaign with a slogan, advertisments and public appearances is a relatively late development in Presidential Elections. The first Presidential candidate to use a slogan, as we know it, was William Henry Harrison in 1840. Here is a list of slogans since that campaign.
On page 199 of the biography, James Madison, The Founding Father by Robert Rutland published in 1987 is the statement:
The closest Madison came to making a campaign pitch that spring [1808] came when he wrote a confidential statement for a special Senate committee…” in which he expressed the hope that the law would be supported ‘by all the manly virtue which the good people of the United States have ever discovered on great and patriotic occasions.’
We also checked a couple of books in our collection on presidential campaigns and slogans. The World Almanac of Presidential Campaigns provided some general information on the presidential slogans for 1808 and 1812. In the section on the “Campaign of 1808” under “Slogans” (p. 22) is the following statement:
Republicans rallied ‘To the Principles of ’76!’ (Madison was a Democrat-Republican.) Federalists coupled Pinkney’s famous quote during the XYZ affair, ‘Millions for defense–not a cent for tribute,’ with one wrongly attributed to Madison by a Repubican rival: ‘France wants money, and we must give it.’
In the section on the “Campaign of 1812” under “Slogans” (p.26):
‘Free Trade and Sailors’ rights’ and ‘On to Canada, On to Canada’ were popular cries of war-hungry Republicans.”
However, nothing in either section actually states that Madison officially adopted a slogan, but rather that these were party rallies. We hope that this information will be of use to you. Thank you for using the Reference Services of The Seattle Public Library.
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