A portrait of James Madison. Sometimes called the "Father of the Constitution," James Madison authored the Virginia Plan which was used as a partial template for the resulting document at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. During the ratification process Madison wrote numerous defenses of the proposed Constitution, now known as the Federalist Papers, under the name Publius in conjunction with John Jay and Alexander Hamilton. Madison's defense of federalism in Federalist 51 has become the classic statement on the virtues of federalism.