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Any reading not of a vicious species must be a good substitute for the amusements too apt to fill up the leisure of the labouring classes.

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
Classes
Leisure
Fill
Labouring
Species
Amusements
Class
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Must
Vicious
Good
Substitutes

More quotes by James Madison

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No distinction seems to be more obvious than that between spiritual and temporal matters. Yet whenever they have been made objects of Legislation, they have clashed and contended with each other, till one or the other has gained the supremacy.
James Madison
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The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived.
James Madison
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America united with a handful of troops, or without a single soldier, exhibits a more forbidding posture to foreign ambition than America disunited, with a hundred thousand veterans ready for combat.
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It is to be the assent and ratification of the several States, derived from the supreme authority in each State, the authority of the people themselves. The act, therefore establishing the Constitution, will not be a NATIONAL, but a FEDERAL act.
James Madison
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History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and it's issuance.
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.
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If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one.
James Madison
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Our opinions agree as to the evil, moral, political, and economical, of slavery.
James Madison
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At first view it might seem not to square with the republican theory, to suppose either that a majority have not the right, or that a minority will have the force to subvert a government . . . . But theoretic reasoning in this, as in most other cases, must be qualified by the lessons of practice.
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Public opinion sets bounds to every government, and is the real sovereign in every free one.
James Madison
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A public debt is a public curse.
James Madison
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The express authority of the people alone could give validity to the Constitution.
James Madison
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Respect for character is always diminished in proportion to the number among whom the blame or praise is to be divided.
James Madison
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There is not a more important and fundamental principle in legislation, than that the ways and means ought always to face the public engagements that our appropriations should ever go hand in hand with our promises.
James Madison
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In a free government the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights.
James Madison
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The appointment of senators by the state legislatures . . . is recommended by the double advantage of favoring a select appointment, and of giving to the state governments such an agency in the formation of the federal government, as must secure the authority of the former.
James Madison
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The American people owe it to themselves, and to the cause of free Government, to prove by their establishments for the advancement and diffusion of knowledge, that their political Institutionsare as favorable to the intellectual and moral improvement of Man as they are conformable to his individual and social rights.
James Madison
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[Exchange] the galling burden of bachelorship for the easy yoke of matrimony.
James Madison
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I have ever regarded the freedom of religious opinions and worship as equally belonging to every sect.
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