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We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties.
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
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Port Conway
Virginia
James Madison
Jr.
President Madison
J. Madison
Madison
Liberty
Upon
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First
Alarm
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More quotes by James Madison
[In government] the constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as that each may be a check on the other-that the private interest of every individual may be a sentinel over the public rights.
James Madison
...several of the first presidents, including Jefferson and Madison, generally refused to issue public prayers, despite importunings to do so. Under pressure, Madison relented in the War Of 1812, but held to his belief that chaplains shouldn't be appointed to the military or be allowed to open Congress.
James Madison
The nation which reposes on the pillow of political confidence, will sooner or later end its political existence in a deadly lethargy.
James Madison
I should not regret a fair and full trial of the entire abolition of capital punishment.
James Madison
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
If we are to take for the criterion of truth the majority of suffrages, they ought to be gotten from those philosophic and patriotic citizens who cultivate their reason.
James Madison
Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression.
James Madison
[In a democracy] a common passion or interest will, in almost every case , be felt by a majority of the whole a communication and concert results from the form of government itself and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual.
James Madison
The inference to which we are brought is that the causes of faction cannot be removed and that relief is only to be sought in the means of controlling its effects.
James Madison
How a regulation so unjust in itself, so foreign to the authority of Congress, and so hurtful to the sale of public land, and smelling so strongly of an antiquated bigotry, could have received the countenance of a committee is truly a matter of astonishment.
James Madison
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.
James Madison
Democracies have been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property and in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death.
James Madison
That useful alterations will be suggested by experience, could not but be foreseen . . . . It moreover equally enables the general and state governments to originate the amendment of errors as they may be pointed out by the experience on one side or on the other.
James Madison
The people can never willfully betray their own interests: But they may possibly be betrayed by the representatives of the people and the danger will be evidently greater where the whole legislative trust is lodged in the hands of one body of men, than where the concurrence of separate and dissimilar bodies is required in every public act.
James Madison
A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.
James Madison
Is there a Legislative power in fact, not expressly prohibited by the Constitution, which might not, according to the doctrine of the Court, be exercised as a means of carrying into effect some specified Power?
James Madison
Bills of attainder, ex-post facto laws and laws impairing the obligation of contracts are contrary to the first principles of the social compact, and to every principle of sound legislation.
James Madison
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
The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex.
James Madison
If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare... they may appoint teachers in every state... The powers of Congress would subvert the very foundation, the very nature of the limited government established by the people of America.
James Madison
