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A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person.

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
Democracy
Consisting
Liberty
Administer
Small
Assemble
Society
Patriotic
Government
Number
Persons
Citizens
Person
Pure
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The ultimate authority resides in the people, and that if the federal government got too powerful and overstepped its authority, then the people would develop plans of resistance and resort to arms.
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There is not a shadow of right in the general government to intermingle with religion. Its least interference with it would be a most flagrant usurpation.
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Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation.... Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.
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It was by the sober sense of our citizens that we were safely and steadily conducted from monarchy to republicanism, and it is by the same agency alone we can be kept from falling back.
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By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest... The latent causes of faction are sown in the nature of man.
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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.
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Every new and successful example of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters is of importance.
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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.
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War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement
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I should not regret a fair and full trial of the entire abolition of capital punishment.
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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.
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Our Constitution represents the work of the finger of Almighty God.
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[Christianity] existed and flourishes, not only without the support of human laws, but in spite of every opposition from them.
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It is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity toward each other.
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We have the self-evident right to regulate our trade according to our own will and our own interest . . . . This right can be denied to no independent nation.
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The two great points of difference between a democracy and a republic are: first, the delegation of the government, in the latter,to a small number of citizens elected by the rest secondly, the greater number of citizens and greater sphere of country over which the latter may be extended.
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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.
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A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
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As the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial departments of the United States are co-ordinate, and each equally bound to support the Constitution, it follows that each must in the exercise of its functions be guided by the text of the Constitution according to its own interpretation of it.
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It is vain to say that enlightened statesmen will always be able to adjust their interests. Enlightened men will not always be at the helm.
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