Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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

More quotes by James Madison

Image
A standing army is one of the greatest mischief that can possibly happen.
James Madison
Image
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.
James Madison
Image
[Restraints on the press] in all ages, have debauched morals, depressed liberty, shackled religion, supported despotism, and deluged the scaffold with blood.
James Madison
Image
What is here a right towards men, is a duty towards the Creator.
James Madison
Image
Who are to be the objects of popular choice? Every citizen whose merit may recommend him to the esteem and confidence of his country.
James Madison
Image
The magnitude of this evil among us is so deeply felt, and so universally acknowledged, that no merit could be greater than that of devising a satisfactory remedy for it.
James Madison
Image
Every answer he [President John Adams] gives to his addressers unmasks more and more his principles and views. His language to the young men at Philadelphia is the most abominable and degrading that could fall from the lips of the first magistrate of an independent people, and particularly from a Revolutionary patriot.
James Madison
Image
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.
James Madison
Image
Measures should be enacted which, without violating the rights of property, would reduce extreme wealth towards a state of mediocrity, and raise extreme indigence towards a state of comfort.
James Madison
Image
[A] mere demarcation on parchment of the constitutional limits of the several departments is not a sufficient guard against those encroachments which lead to a tyrannical concentration of all the powers of government in the same hands.
James Madison
Image
In the extent and proper structure of the Union, therefore, we behold a republican remedy for the disease incident to republican government.
James Madison
Image
But the mere circumstance of complexion cannot deprive them of the character of men.
James Madison
Image
Resistance to tyranny is service to God.
James Madison
Image
Temporary deviations from fundamental principles are always more or less dangerous. When the first pretext fails, those who become interested in prolonging the evil will rarely be at a loss for other pretexts.
James Madison
Image
The number of individuals employed under the Constitution of the United States will be much smaller than the number employed under the particular States.
James Madison
Image
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.
James Madison
Image
The people can never willfully betray their own interests: But they may possibly be betrayed by the representatives of the people and the danger will be evidently greater where the whole legislative trust is lodged in the hands of one body of men, than where the concurrence of separate and dissimilar bodies is required in every public act.
James Madison
Image
We've staked our future on our ability to follow the Ten Commandments with all our heart.
James Madison
Image
A sincere and steadfast co-operation in promoting such a reconstruction of our political system as would provide for the permanent liberty and happiness of the United States.
James Madison
Image
In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.
James Madison