James Madison Quotes on Government (18 Quotes)

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.

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

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.

But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm... But what degree of madness could ever drive the federal government to such an extremity.

A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person.

Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

It becomes all therefore who are friends of a Government based on free principles to reflect, that by denying the possibility of a system partly federal and partly consolidated, and who would convert ours into one either wholly federal or wholly consolidated, in neither of which forms have individual rights, public order, and external safety, been all duly maintained, they aim a deadly blow at the last hope of true liberty on the face of the Earth.

The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted.

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.

To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.

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.

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.

Government destitute of energy, will ever produce anarchy.

Public opinion sets bounds to every government, and is the real sovereign in every free one

The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.

The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny

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.

Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.