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Quotes by James Madison


The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.
– James Madison
A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person.
– James Madison
A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country.
– James Madison
As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.
– James Madison
Democracy is the most vile form of government... democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention: have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property: and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.
– James Madison
Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government.
– James Madison
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
– James Madison
It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.
– James Madison
Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
– James Madison
Learned Institutions ought to be favorite objects with every free people. They throw that light over the public mind which is the best security against crafty and dangerous encroachments on the public liberty.
– James Madison
Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.
– James Madison
No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
– James Madison
Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.
– James Madison
The Constitution of the United States was created by the people of the United States composing the respective states, who alone had the right .
– James Madison
The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.
– James Madison
The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to an uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government.
– James Madison
The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.
– James Madison
The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.
– James Madison
The loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or imagined, from abroad.
– James Madison
The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.
– James Madison
The proposed Constitution is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal constitution; but a composition of both.
– James Madison
The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries.
– James Madison
We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties.
– James Madison
What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.
– James Madison
What prudent merchant will hazard his fortunes in any new branch of commerce when he knows not that his plans may be rendered unlawful before they can be executed?
– James Madison
I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.
– James Madison
Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.
– James Madison
Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.
– James Madison
Whenever a youth is ascertained to possess talents meriting an education which his parents cannot afford, he should be carried forward at the public expense.
– James Madison
What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual and surest support?
– James Madison
War should only be declared by the authority of the people, whose toils and treasures are to support its burdens, instead of the government which is to reap its fruits.
– James Madison
War contains so much folly, as well as wickedness, that much is to be hoped from the progress of reason.
– James Madison
To the press alone, chequered as it is with abuses, the world is indebted for all the triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.
– James Madison
To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.
– James Madison
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.
– James Madison
The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived.
– James Madison
The happy Union of these States is a wonder their Constitution a miracle their example the hope of Liberty throughout the world.
– James Madison
The class of citizens who provide at once their own food and their own raiment, may be viewed as the most truly independent and happy.
– James Madison
The circulation of confidence is better than the circulation of money.
– James Madison
The capacity of the female mind for studies of the highest order cannot be doubted, having been sufficiently illustrated by its works of genius, of erudition, and of science.
– James Madison
Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.
– James Madison
Let me recommend the best medicine in the world: a long journey, at a mild season, through a pleasant country, in easy stages.
– James Madison
In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.
– James Madison
In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men you must first enable the government to control the governed and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
– James Madison
If we are to take for the criterion of truth the majority of suffrages, they ought to be gotten from those philosophic and patriotic citizens who cultivate their reason.
– James Madison
I have no doubt but that the misery of the lower classes will be found to abate whenever the Government assumes a freer aspect and the laws favor a subdivision of Property.
– James Madison
Every nation whose affairs betray a want of wisdom and stability may calculate on every loss which can be sustained from the more systematic policy of its wiser neighbors.
– James Madison
And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.
– James Madison
A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.
– James Madison
A sincere and steadfast co-operation in promoting such a reconstruction of our political system as would provide for the permanent liberty and happiness of the United States.
– James Madison
A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce, or a tragedy, or perhaps both.
– James Madison
A man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them.
– James Madison