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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
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Port Conway
Virginia
James Madison
Jr.
President Madison
J. Madison
Madison
Persons
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Resistance to tyranny is service to God.
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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. With equal, nay with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges and parties at the same time.
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I am unable to conceive that the state legislatures which must feel so many motives to watch, and which possess so many means of counteracting the federal legislature, would fail either to detect or to defeat a conspiracy of the latter against the liberties of their common constituencies.
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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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We've staked our future on our ability to follow the Ten Commandments with all our heart.
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We are teaching the world the great truth that Governments do better without Kings & Nobles than with them. The merit will be doubled by the other lesson that Religion Flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.
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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.
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Measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.
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These considerations and many others that might be mentioned prove, and experience confirms it, that artisans and manufacturers will commonly be disposed to bestow their votes on merchants.
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The strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast ambition, avarice, vanity, the honorable or venal love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace.
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An oath-the strongest of religious ties.
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[It] is indispensable that some provision should be made for defending the Community agst [against] the incapicity, negligence or perfidy of the chief Magistrate.
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An efficient militia is authorized and contemplated by the Constitution and required by the spirit and safety of free government.
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The regulation of commerce, it is true, is a new power but that seems to be an addition which few oppose and from which no apprehensions are entertained.
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In all great changes of established governments, forms ought to give way to substance
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That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest.
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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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But the mere circumstance of complexion cannot deprive them of the character of men.
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