James Madison, fourth president of the United States, is also known as the Father of the Constitution because he was the primary author of that document. Constitutional scholars (of which I am most certainly not one) study other writings by Madison and others who were involved in the creation of this founding document to gain a fuller understanding of the motivations and guiding principles that were behind the words. Madison and Jefferson shared many letters back and forth to each other but were growing increasingly wary of the Federalists. Madison’s “Political Observations” was a pamphlet (which he left unsigned) that was published in Philadelphia on April 20, 1795 (8 years after the Constitution was adopted) in which he is openly critical of the Federalists and George Washington and discusses the following real danger to liberty:

Of all the enemies of true liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.

War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.

In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people.

The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manner and of morals, engendered in both.

No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement. In war, a physical force is to be created; and it is the executive will, which is to direct it.

In war, the public treasuries are to be unlocked; and it is the executive hand which is to dispense them.

In war, the honors and emoluments of office are to be multiplied; and it is the executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed; and it is the executive brow they are to encircle.

The strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast; ambition, avarice, vanity, the honorable or venal love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace.

References
http://www.virginia.edu/pjm/review31.htm
http://www.reclaimdemocracy.org/quotes/madison_perpetual_war.html
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Madison
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Madison
http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitution