QUOTES by James Madison
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“In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”
Quote by -James Madison
“it was impossible to confine a Government to the exercise of express powers; there must necessarily be admitted powers by implication, unless the Constitution descended to recount every minutia”
Quote by -James Madison
“Hence it is that such 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.”
Quote by -James Madison
“Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government.”
Quote by -James Madison
“No axiom is more clearly established in law or in reason than wherever the end is required, the means are authorized; wherever a general power to do a thing is given, every particular power for doing it is included.”
Quote by -James Madison
“In framing a system which we wish to last for ages, we shd. not lose sight of the changes which ages will produce. [James Madison in the U.S. Constitutional Convention, June 26, 1787. The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, ed. Max Farrand (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 1:422.]”
Quote by -James Madison
“Quotes. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”
Quote by -James Madison
“It is a principle incorporated into the settled policy of America, that as peace is better than War, War is better than tribute.”
Quote by -James Madison
“And if novelties are to be shunned, believe me, the most alarming of all novelties, the most wild of all projects, the most rash of all attempts, is that of rending us in pieces, in order to preserve our liberties, and promote our happiness.”
Quote by -James Madison
“But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature.”
Quote by -James Madison
“The censorial power is in the people over the government, and not in the government over the people.”
Quote by -James Madison
“The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust.”
Quote by -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.”
Quote by -James Madison
“Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.”
Quote by -James Madison
“...we should never think of separation except for repeated and enormous violations”
Quote by -James Madison
“But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflection on human nature?”
Quote by -James Madison
“To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;”
Quote by -James Madison
“Where we see the same faults followed regularly by the same misfortunes, we may reasonably think that if we could have known the first we might have avoided the others.”
Quote by -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.”
Quote by -James Madison
“Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit.”
Quote by -James Madison
“No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity.”
Quote by -James Madison
“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.”
Quote by -James Madison
“In no instance have the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people.”
Quote by -James Madison
“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new guards for their future security —”
Quote by -James Madison
“...[at the Constitutional Convention] the States were divided into different interests not by their difference of size, but principally from their having or not having slaves. It did not lie between the large and small States: it lay between the Northern and Southern.”
Quote by -James Madison
“Despotism can only exist in darkness, and there are too many lights now in the political firmament, to permit it to remain anywhere, as it has heretofore done, almost everywhere.”
Quote by -James Madison
“[The Senate] ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.”
Quote by -James Madison
“I entirely concur in the propriety of restoring to the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the nation. In that sense alone it is a legitimate constitution. And, if that be not the guide in expounding it, there can be no security for consistent and stable government.”
Quote by -James Madison
“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. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and the next place, oblige it to control itself.”
Quote by -James Madison
“Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprize, every expanded prospect.”
Quote by -James Madison
“Experience is the oracle of truth; and where its responses are unequivocal, they ought to be conclusive and sacred.”
Quote by -James Madison
“The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext, infringed.”
Quote by -James Madison
“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.”
Quote by -James Madison
“If we are to be one Nation in any respect, it clearly ought to be in respect to other Nations.”
Quote by -James Madison
“Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.”
Quote by -James Madison
“Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.”
Quote by -James Madison
“During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.”
Quote by -James Madison
“In framing a government, which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty is this: You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.”
Quote by -James Madison
“A good Government implies two things: first, fidelity to the object of Government, which is the happiness of the People; secondly, a knowledge of the means by which that object can be best attained.”
Quote by -James Madison
“Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.”
Quote by -James Madison