James Madison Quotes (114 Quotes)


    As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed.

    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.

    Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this relation, then, the new Constitution will, if established, be a FEDERAL, and not a NATIONAL constitution.

    The number of individuals employed under the Constitution of the United States will be much smaller than the number employed under the particular states. There will consequently be less of personal influence on the side of the former than of the latter.

    There is no maxim, in my opinion, which is more liable to be misapplied, and which, therefore, more needs elucidation, than the current one, that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong.


    If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

    The safety and happiness of society are the objects at which all political institutions aim, and to which all such institutions must be sacrificed

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

    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?


    When you've got so many people on something trying to make it better, you're going to get a pretty good product,

    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.

    Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.

    The distinction between liberty and licentiousness is a repetition of the Protean doctrine of implication, which is ever ready to work its ends by varying its shape

    Another of my wishes is to depend as little as possible on the labor of slaves

    Measures should be enacted which, without violating the rights of property, would reduce extreme wealth towards a state of mediocrity, and raise extreme indigence towards a state of comfort

    The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.

    Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.

    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.

    Equal laws protecting equal rights . . . the best guarantee of loyalty and love of country.

    The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.

    The loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or imagined, from abroad.

    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.

    A watchful eye must be kept on ourselves, lest while we are building ideal monuments of renown and bliss here, we neglect to have our names enrolled in the annals of Heaven

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

    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.

    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.

    Union of religious sentiments begets a surprising confidence.

    Government destitute of energy, will ever produce anarchy.

    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.

    The American people are too well schooled in the duty and practice of submitting to the will of the majority to permit any serious uneasiness on that account

    Commercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive, and impolitic.

    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.

    Those innocent screen savers, pictures and games that we once downloaded with abandon have much more ability to play havoc today,

    On a candid examination of history, we shall find that turbulence, violence, and abuse of power, by the majority, trampling on the rights of the minority, have produced factions and commotions which, in republics, have, more frequently than any other.

    History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance.

    We had some great set-ups with Inge and Jessica Miller in the middle, ... Inge gets better and better everyday. I think at first she had to get used to what was going on, but she is really starting to move the ball well and ignite our attack.

    Respect for character is always diminished in proportion to the number among whom the blame or praise is to be divided.

    The internal effects of a mutable policy poisons the blessings of liberty itself.

    Some people might say, Aha They forgot about the Constitution's general welfare clause ... With respect to the two words 'general welfare,' I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.

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

    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.

    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.

    No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment....

    What has been the fruit of religion Pride and indolence in the clergy, ignorance in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.

    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.

    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 Clash of Orthodoxies Law, Religion, and Morality in Crisis.


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