Quote

Another advantage accruing from this ingredient in the constitution of a senate, is the additional impediment it must prove against improper acts of legislation. No law or resolution can now be passed without the concurrence first of a majority of the people, and then of a majority of the states.

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
States
Passed
Impediment
Firsts
Acts
Impediments
Without
Majority
Ingredient
First
Constitution
Additional
Must
Advantage
Ingredients
Accruing
People
Prove
Legislation
Concurrence
Law
Resolution
Federalism
Another
Senate
Improper

More quotes by James Madison

Image
The power of taxing people and their property is essential to the very existence of government.
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
There never was an assembly of men, charged with a great and arduous trust, who were more pure in their motives, or more exclusively or anxiously devoted to the object committed to them.
James Madison
Image
It may well happen that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more constant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves.
James Madison
Image
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
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
Procrastination in the beginning and precipitation towards the conclusion is the characteristic of such bodies.
James Madison
Image
Commercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive, and impolitic.
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
We look back, already, with astonishment, at the daring outrages committed by despotism, on the reason and rights of man we look forward with joy, to the period, when it shall be despoiled of all its usurpations, and bound forever in the chains, with which it had loaded its miserable victims.
James Madison
Image
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
Image
It is vain to say that enlightened statesmen will always be able to adjust their interests. Enlightened men will not always be at the helm.
James Madison
Image
Government destitute of energy, will ever produce anarchy.
James Madison
Image
When men exercise their reason coolly and freely, on a variety of distinct questions, they inevitably fall into different opinions, on some of them. When they are governed by a common passion, their opinions if they are so to be called, will be the same.
James Madison
Image
Philosophy is common sense with big words.
James Madison
Image
We have seen that the tendency of republican governments is to an aggrandizement of the legislative at the expense of the other departments. The appeals to the people, therefore, would usually be made by the executive and judiciary departments.
James Madison
Image
War should only be declared by the authority of the people, whose toils and treasures are to support its burdens, instead of the government which is to reap its fruits.
James Madison
Image
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
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
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