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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

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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
Take
Patriotic
Gotten
Majority
Citizens
Criterion
Ought
Philosophic
Liberty
Suffrage
Truth
Criteria
Reason
Cultivate

More quotes by James Madison

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It has been said that all Government is an evil. It would be more proper to say that the necessity of any Government is a misfortune. This necessity however exists and the problem to be solved is, not what form of Government is perfect, but which of the forms is least imperfect.
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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.
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The Constitution of the U.S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion.
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But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm . . . But what degree of madness could ever drive the federal government to such an extremity.
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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.
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Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
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If the public homage of a people can ever be worthy of the favorable regard of the Holy and Omniscient Being to Whom it is addressed, it must be that in which those who join in it are guided only be their free choice-by the impulse of their hearts and the dictates of their consciences.
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The proposed Constitution is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal constitution but a composition of both.
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Knowledge will forever govern ignorance and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
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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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The problem to be solved is, not what form of government is perfect, but which of the forms is least imperfect.
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I should not regret a fair and full trial of the entire abolition of capital punishment.
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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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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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The eyes of the world being thus on our Country, it is put the more on its good behavior, and under the greater obligation also, to do justice to the Tree of Liberty by an exhibition of the fine fruits we gather from it.
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The most productive system of finance will always be the least burdensome.
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If we advert to the nature of republican government, we shall find that the censorial power is in the people over the government, and not in the government over the people.
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We have staked the whole future of our new nation, not upon the power of government far from it. We have staked the future of all our political constitutions upon the capacity of each of ourselves to govern ourselves according to the moral principles of the Ten Commandments.
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With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.
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Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.
James Madison