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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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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
Character
Proportion
Always
Ethics
Blame
Praise
Number
Among
Diminished
Respect
Divided
Numbers
Presidential

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The most productive system of finance will always be the least burdensome.
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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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The free system of government we have established is so congenial with reason, with common sense, and with a universal feeling, that it must produce approbation and a desire of imitation, as avenues may be found for truth to the knowledge of nations.
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Union of religious sentiments begets a surprising confidence.
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The religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate.
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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 American people are too well schooled in the duty and practice of submitting to the will of the majority to permit any serious uneasiness on that account
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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.
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The settled opinion here is that religion is essentially distinct from Civil Govt. and exempt from its cognizance that a connection between them is injurious to both.
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To provide employment for the poor, and support for the indigent, is among the primary, and, at the same time, not least difficult cares of the public authority.
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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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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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The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of government.
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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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[Exchange] the galling burden of bachelorship for the easy yoke of matrimony.
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If men were angels, there would be no need of government.
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In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.
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I acknowledge, in the ordinary course of government, that the exposition of the laws and Constitution devolves upon the judicial. But I beg to know upon what principle it can be contended that any one department draws from the Constitution greater powers than another in marking out the limits of the powers of the several departments.
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Our opinions agree as to the evil, moral, political, and economical, of slavery.
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The great desideratum in Government is, so to modify the sovereignty as that it may be sufficiently neutral between different parts of the Society to controul one part from invading the rights of another, and at the same time sufficiently controuled itself, from setting up an interest adverse to that of the entire Society.
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