evidence: Madison was a sickly and slightly built man who stood just 5 feet 4 inches tall and rarely tipped the scales at much more than 100 pounds. His voice was so weak that people often had difficulty hearing his speeches, and he was plagued by recurring bouts of "bilious fever" and what he described as "a constitutional liability to sudden attacks, somewhat resembling epilepsy." While contemporaries praised Madison’s fierce intelligence, many also made note of his small size and timid demeanor. The wife of a Virginia politician once labeled him "the most unsociable creature in existence." [...] Following a stint in the Virginia Convention in 1776, a young James Madison lost a 1777 bid for election to the state’s House of Delegates. He would later write that the defeat was the result of his refusal to provide free liquor to the voters on Election Day, a common custom then known as "swilling the planters with bumbo." The future president believed that bribing electors with booze was contrary to republican principles, but one of his opponents—who also happened to be a tavern keeper—simply "adhered to the old practice" and raked in the votes. Despite the setback, Madison was soon chosen for an open seat on Virginia’s Council of State. By 1780, the 29-year-old was serving as the youngest delegate to the Continental Congress.