What effect did Madison’s family background have on his early life? James Madison’s father was one of the wealthiest landowners in Orange County. His relationship with his parents were both respectful and affectionate. His father would provide all financial support James needed. As a young adult, he would take care of his younger siblings instead of being with the older siblings. At age eleven, he attended the school by Donald Robertson in neighboring King and Queen County. There he studied logic, philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and French. He spent five years there and another two being tutored at the family plantation by Reverend Thomas Martin. James wanted to continue studying and the Madison’s family agreed that James could study at Princeton University rather than in Virginia’s own William and Mary. After James studies, his father was managing the family’s land, but Madison wasn't interested in marriage so he had no reason to establish a plantation of his own. On the eve of the Revolution, he was a young man possessed of wealth, education, excellent prospects, and no plans. Growing up the way James Madison did allowed him to experience many different…show more content… What authority, if any, could the British Parliament justly exercise over America? This question had first been posed in terms of right of Parliament to impose taxes on America. Americans felt they already borne their fair share of the war’s cost. But more to the point, they argued, such taxes could be imposed only by the free acts of their own assemblies, not by a Parliament in which they were not- nor ever could be represented. A debate that began over taxation quickly escalated into a dispute over representation and soon reached even higher levels of constitutional principle. Colonists began to question whether they should obey any laws that Parliament
