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Oppressors can tyrannize only when they achieve a standing army, an enslaved press, and a disarmed populace.

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
Press
Army
Standing
Tyrannize
Strength
Disarmed
Achieve
Populace
Politics
Enslaved
Peace
Oppressors
Presses

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[Christianity] existed and flourishes, not only without the support of human laws, but in spite of every opposition from them.
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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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Reason, on the contrary, assures us, that as in so great a number, a fit representative would be most likely to be found, so the choice would be less likely to be diverted from him, by the intrigues of the ambitious, or the bribes of the rich.
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In no part of the Constitution is more wisdom to be found than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace to the legislature, and not the executive department. ... The trust and the temptation would be too great for any one man.
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The Federal Constitution forms a happy combination in this respect the great and aggregate interests being referred to the national, the local and particular, to the state legislatures.
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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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The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex.
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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.
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Philosophy is common sense with big words.
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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.
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Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.
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The means of defence against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.
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A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person.
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If slavery, as a national evil, is to be abolished, and it be just that it be done at the national expense, the amount of the expense is not a paramount consideration.
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Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.
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In a free government the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights.
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But the mild voice of reason, pleading the cause of an enlarged and permanent interest, is but too often drowned, before public bodies as well as individuals, by the clamors of an impatient avidity for immediate and immoderate gain.
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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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