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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

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James Madison
Age: 85 †
Born: 1751
Born: March 16
Died: 1836
Died: June 28
4Th U.S. President
Diplomat
Lawyer
Philosopher
Politician
Slaveholder
Statesperson
Writer
Port Conway
Virginia
James Madison
Jr.
President Madison
J. Madison
Madison
Wells
Defense
Well
Conservative
Country
Arms
People
Liberty
Free
Regulated
Natural
Militia
Body
Composed
Best
Trained

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The free system of government we have established is so congenial with reason, with common sense, and with a universal feeling, that it must produce approbation and a desire of imitation, as avenues may be found for truth to the knowledge of nations.
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In a free government the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights.
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A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.
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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.
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Torrents of blood have been spilt in the old world, by vain attempts of the secular arm, to extinguish Religious discord, by proscribing all difference in religious opinion. Time has at length revealed the true remedy. Every relaxation of narrow and rigorous policy, wherever it has been tried, has been found to assuage the disease.
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[Restraints on the press] in all ages, have debauched morals, depressed liberty, shackled religion, supported despotism, and deluged the scaffold with blood.
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A certain degree of preparation for war . . . affords also the best security for the continuance of peace.
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Union of religious sentiments begets a surprising confidence, and ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption all of which facilitate the execution of mischievous projects.
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The express authority of the people alone could give validity to the Constitution.
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The nation which reposes on the pillow of political confidence, will sooner or later end its political existence in a deadly lethargy.
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[The proposed establishment] will have a . . . tendency to banish our Citizens. . . . To superadd a fresh motive to emigration by revoking the liberty which they now enjoy, would be the same species of folly which has dishonoured and depopulated flourishing kingdoms.
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America united with a handful of troops, or without a single soldier, exhibits a more forbidding posture to foreign ambition than America disunited, with a hundred thousand veterans ready for combat.
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The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man.
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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.
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Any reading not of a vicious species must be a good substitute for the amusements too apt to fill up the leisure of the labouring classes.
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I should not regret a fair and full trial of the entire abolition of capital punishment.
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We look back, already, with astonishment, at the daring outrages committed by despotism, on the reason and rights of man we look forward with joy, to the period, when it shall be despoiled of all its usurpations, and bound forever in the chains, with which it had loaded its miserable victims.
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No man can be a competent legislator who does not add to an upright intention and a sound judgment a certain degree of knowledge of the subject on which he is to legislate.
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[In the case of] dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states, who are parties thereto, have the right, and are duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil.
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