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Philosophy is common sense with big words.

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
Common
Words
Bigs
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Body
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Liberty

More quotes by James Madison

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The religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate.
James Madison
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Nothing is so contagious as opinion, especially on questions which, being susceptible of very different glosses, beget in the mind a distrust of itself.
James Madison
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As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed.
James Madison
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A just security to property is not afforded by that government, under which unequal taxes oppress one species of property and reward another species.
James Madison
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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.
James Madison
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Those who proposed the Constitution knew, and those who ratified the Constitution also knew that this is...a limited government tied down to specified powers....It was never supposed or suspected that the old Congress could give away the money of the states to encourage agriculture or for any other purpose they pleased.
James Madison
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How could a readiness for war in time of peace be safely prohibited, unless we could prohibit, in like manner, the preparations and establishments of every hostile nation?
James Madison
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From the the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results.
James Madison
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Another advantage accruing from this ingredient in the constitution of a senate, is the additional impediment it must prove against improper acts of legislation. No law or resolution can now be passed without the concurrence first of a majority of the people, and then of a majority of the states.
James Madison
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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.
James Madison
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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.
James Madison
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Government is instituted to protect property of every sort as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government which impartially secures to every man whatever is his own.
James Madison
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The advice nearest to my heart and deepest in my convictions is that the union of the states be cherished and perpetuated. Let the open enemy to it be regarded as a Pandora with her box opened, and the disguised one as the serpent creeping with his deadly wiles into paradise.
James Madison
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Commercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive, and impolitic.
James Madison
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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
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The settled opinion here is that religion is essentially distinct from Civil Govt. and exempt from its cognizance that a connection between them is injurious to both.
James Madison
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... the State Legislatures will jealously and closely watch the operations of this Government, and be able to resist with more effect every assumption of power, than any other power on earth can do and the greatest opponents to a Federal Government admit the State Legislatures to be sure guardians of the people's liberty.
James Madison
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No government, any more than an individual, will long be respected without being truly respectable nor be truly respectable, without possessing a certain portion of order and stability.
James Madison
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An efficient militia is authorized and contemplated by the Constitution and required by the spirit and safety of free government.
James Madison
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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.
James Madison