This is James Madison at age 32. His coming of age had coincided with a massive wave of religious persecution in that part of Virginia. Between 1760 and 1778, there were more than 150 major attacks against Baptists in the colony, most of them carried out by leaders of local Anglican churches – and most within a horse ride of Madison’s home in Orange County, Virginia.“That diabolical, Hell-conceived principle of persecution rages,” he said to his friend William Bradford. He noted that several Baptists imprisoned in the neighboring county for the crime of being a Baptist. “I want again to breathe your free Air.”

Bust portrait miniature by Charles Willson Peale (1741–1827). Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division.