Madison biographer Irving Brant described the fifty-year relationship between Thomas Jefferson and James Madison as a "perfectly balanced friendship" β they complimented and supported each other, both personally and in their political careers. Madison was born into the Piedmont gentry on March 16, n. Rather than attending the College of William and Mary as most young Virginia gentlemen did, Madison and his father chose the Presbyterian College of New Jersey now Princeton University for his education, both because of concerns that the tidewater of Virginia was unhealthy and because of disagreements with the Anglican establishment that controlled the Virginia college.
He set out for Princeton in accompanied by his personal slave, Sawney, and proceeded to complete a four-year course of study in only thirty months, graduating in September Unfortunately, his Princeton practice of sleeping only five hours per night in order to pursue his studies took a toll on his health, and the following spring Madison returned to his father's plantation to rest and to decide upon a career.
Throughout his life, Madison considered himself to be in frail health. He was small, standing about 5'6", of a slight build, and has been variously described as "feeble," "pale," and "sickly"; yet he lived to the age of 85 years. During this period of recuperation following his graduation from Princeton, he studied law, though he never intended to practice and never qualified as a lawyer. Madison became interested in public affairs while still a student at Princeton, and in , at the age of 25, he was elected as one of two delegates from Orange County to attend the Fifth Virginia Convention in Williamsburg.
The conventions replaced the House of Burgesses during the American Revolution as the colony's legislative body. After adoption of Virginia's first constitution in June , Madison continued as a member of the House of Delegates, and it was here that junior member Madison was introduced to Thomas Jefferson in the fall of when Jefferson returned to Williamsburg from the Continental Congress.
The two men became acquainted that fall as they worked together on diminishing the power of the established church in Virginia and promoting religious freedom, a topic to which both were deeply committed and on which they would cooperate for years.
