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The express authority of the people alone could give validity to the Constitution.
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
Giving
People
Validity
Express
Constitution
Authority
Alone
Give
More quotes by James Madison
Procrastination in the beginning and precipitation towards the conclusion is the characteristic of such bodies.
James Madison
At first view it might seem not to square with the republican theory, to suppose either that a majority have not the right, or that a minority will have the force to subvert a government . . . . But theoretic reasoning in this, as in most other cases, must be qualified by the lessons of practice.
James Madison
Congress should not establish a religion, and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any Manner contrary to their conscience.
James Madison
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.
James Madison
[In government] the constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as that each may be a check on the other-that the private interest of every individual may be a sentinel over the public rights.
James Madison
Testimony of all ages forces us to admit that war is among the most dangerous enemies to liberty, and that the executive is the branch most favored by it of all the branches of Power.
James Madison
The invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the Constituents.
James Madison
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.
James Madison
The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.
James Madison
Another of my wishes is to depend as little as possible on the labour of slaves.
James Madison
Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society.
James Madison
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.
James Madison
No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity. With equal, nay with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges and parties at the same time.
James Madison
We are teaching the world the great truth that Governments do better without Kings & Nobles than with them. The merit will be doubled by the other lesson that Religion Flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.
James Madison
This policy of supplying by opposite and rival interests, the defect of better motives, might be traced through the whole system of human affairs, both private and public.
James Madison
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.
James Madison
A standing army is one of the greatest mischief that can possibly happen.
James Madison
A people armed and free, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition and is a bulwark for the nation against foreign invasion and domestic oppression.
James Madison
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
James Madison
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
