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I should not regret a fair and full trial of the entire abolition of capital punishment.

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
Full
Trial
Capital
Trials
Punishment
Fairs
Fair
Regret
Entire
Abolition

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The constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it.
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Learned Institutions ought to be favorite objects with every free people. They throw that light over the public mind which is the best security against crafty and dangerous encroachments on the public liberty.
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At cheaper and nearer seats of Learning parents with slender incomes may place their sons in a course of education putting them on a level with the sons of the Richest.
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Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression.
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Public opinion sets bounds to every government, and is the real sovereign in every free one.
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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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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.
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The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man.
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[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.
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...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.
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And may I not be allowed to ... read in the character of the American people, in their devotion to true liberty and to the Constitution which is its palladium [protection], ... a Government which watches over ... the equal interdict [prohibition] against encroachments and compacts between religion and the state.
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We have seen that the tendency of republican governments is to an aggrandizement of the legislative at the expense of the other departments. The appeals to the people, therefore, would usually be made by the executive and judiciary departments.
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A public debt is a public curse.
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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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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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Every new and successful example of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters is of importance.
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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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I flatter myself [we] have in this country extinguished forever the ambitious hope of making laws for the human mind.
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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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Experience has instructed us that no skill in the science of government has yet been able to discriminate and define, with sufficient certainty, its three great provinces the legislative, executive, and judiciary or even the privileges and powers of the different legislative branches.
James Madison