Before serving as the fourth President of the United States, Madison was the young legislator who engineered the passage of Jefferson’s Statute into law by anonymously circulating his “Memorial and Remonstrance.” The document listed many reasons why neither the church nor the state would benefit from an established church. An alternative system for limited disestablishment, proposed by Patrick Henry, was defeated. Under Madison’s stewardship, while Jefferson was in France, the Statute received strong popular support, especially from petitions signed by thousands of Virginia Baptists.