Participants in the survey produced a virtual tie for most influential Virginian of the 18th century, nominating James Madison and Thomas Jefferson in the greatest or most influential categories in almost equal numbers.

The public lives of both men spanned the artificial boundary of the end of one century and the beginning of another. They were both president of the United States in the 19th century, and Jefferson received nominations in both categories for both centuries. Yet for the 18th century, Madison is entitled to the honor.

He was known during his lifetime as "the great little Madison." A man of comparatively small physical stature, he was a man of tremendous intellect and excellent political skills.

Madison was the man who suggested in the Virginia Convention of 1776 that George Mason's draft Declaration of Rights be amended to transform its promise of religious toleration into an outright guarantee of complete religious liberty. That is one of the most celebrated sections of the declaration -- and Madison wrote it.

During the American Revolution and the years immediately following, Madison often represented Virginia in the Continental Congress. In that body he exhibited extraordinary legislative talents, which he also employed as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates on many occasions. The most notable was in guiding to passage Jefferson's Act for Establishing Religious Freedom during the winter of 17851786.

Historian Sara Bearss specifically mentioned the Memorial and Remonstrance that Madison wrote and published anonymously during the debates over whether the state should tax citizens to support teachers of Christianity or abolish the established church and allow religious beliefs, practices, and institutions to become entirely private, personal matters.

Indeed it is Memorial and Remonstrance more than any one statement that explains the rationale for the separation of church and state in Virginia.

Madison's skills as a legislator made him the first great legislative leader in Congress, where he served for four terms in the House of Representatives.

Madison was also the most influential member of the Constitutional Convention of 1787. He prepared the first draft that set the terms of the debate on the Constitution, which was ratified the following year.

Madison led the successful but difficult struggle for ratification in Virginia. He also contributed some of the most original and important essays to the Federalist Papers, the book-length series of commentaries on the new Constitution that not only helped persuade state convention delegates to ratify the Constitution, but also explained its purposes and operations to subsequent generations.

Madison's writings on the Constitution are still cited as authoritative, as historian and archivist Trenton Hizer wrote. "All other theorists, jurists, and political scientists must base their writings on Madison's work."

As a member of the first Congress after ratification, Madison persuaded Congress to draft and propose the Bill of Rights to the states for ratification. Historian Charles Hobson made a long list of Madison's principal accomplishments but singled out his sponsorship of the Bill of Rights as perhaps the most important: "This was an achievement of incalculable importance, for it reconciled many well-meaning opponents of the Constitution who were uneasy about its omission of a guarantee of rights.

"In one stroke," Hobson wrote, "the Constitution itself was effectively removed from political debate. Henceforth, debates would be about the meaning of the Constitution, not about its merits as a plan of government."

Historian Bland Whitley suggested that Madison was "perhaps the most brilliant and original political philosopher this country has produced." Madison's close study of politics, history, and philosophy gave him unique insights and abilities in the political arena. He thought and wrote and spoke more systematically and deeply and originally than any other Virginian or American.

No other Virginian made so many fundamentally important contributions to American conceptions of religious liberty. No other Virginian was as important in the creation of the Bill of Rights. No other Virginian had such a profound influence on the Constitution and our federal system of government. No other Virginian was as skilled a legislator or as persuasive an author of essays on politics and political philosophy.

As historian Jen Loux summarized Madison's achievements, "Nobody contributed more to the development of American political theory and practice (and that's before his 19th-century service as secretary of state and as president)."

The structure of the American experiment of representative government sprang from the pen of this Virginian, and has leapt across the globe. Even though the "great little Madison" sometimes appears to walk in the shadows of taller men of indisputable greatness, the accomplishments of the modest man from Orange County gave him the longestlasting influence. -- B.T.