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Democracies have been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property and in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death.

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
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Port Conway
Virginia
James Madison
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President Madison
J. Madison
Madison
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More quotes by James Madison

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What is the structure of government that will best guard against the precipitate counsels and factious combinations for unjust purposes, without a sacrifice of the fundamental principle of republicanism?
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I have ever regarded the freedom of religious opinions and worship as equally belonging to every sect.
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As the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial departments of the United States are co-ordinate, and each equally bound to support the Constitution, it follows that each must in the exercise of its functions be guided by the text of the Constitution according to its own interpretation of it.
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Union of religious sentiments begets a surprising confidence, and ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption all of which facilitate the execution of mischievous projects.
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The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex.
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As to the permanent interest of individuals in the aggregated interests of the community, and in the proverbial maxim, that honesty is the best policy, present temptation is often found to be an overmatch for those considerations.
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Nothing could be more irrational than to give the people power, and to withhold from them information without which power is abused.
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[R]efusing or not refusing to execute a law to stamp it with its final character . . . makes the Judiciary department paramount in fact to the Legislature, which was never intended and can never be proper.
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People will continue to seek justice until it is found, or until liberty is lost in the pursuit.
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In the first place, it is to be remembered, that the general government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws. Its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any.
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In all great changes of established governments, forms ought to give way to substance
James Madison
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The advice nearest to my heart and deepest in my convictions is that the Union of the States be cherished and perpetuated.
James Madison
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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.
James Madison
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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.
James Madison
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I wish not to be regarded as an advocate for the particular organizations of the several state governments . . . they carry strong marks of the haste, and still stronger marks of the inexperience, under which they were framed.
James Madison
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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.
James Madison
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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.
James Madison
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Union of religious sentiments begets a surprising confidence.
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There is an evil which ought to be guarded against in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by...corporations. The power of all corporations ought to be limited in this respect. The growing wealth acquired by them never fails to be a source of abuses.
James Madison
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By rendering the labor of one, the property of the other, they cherish pride, luxury, and vanity on one side on the other, vice and servility, or hatred and revolt.
James Madison