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[I]t is the reason alone, of the public, that ought to control and regulate the government.
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
Public
Alone
Government
Reason
Regulate
Ought
Control
More quotes by James Madison
I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.
James Madison
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.
James Madison
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
[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
[Restraints on the press] in all ages, have debauched morals, depressed liberty, shackled religion, supported despotism, and deluged the scaffold with blood.
James Madison
The advice nearest to my heart and deepest in my convictions is that the union of the states be cherished and perpetuated. Let the open enemy to it be regarded as a Pandora with her box opened, and the disguised one as the serpent creeping with his deadly wiles into paradise.
James Madison
A distinction of property results from that very protection which a free Government gives to unequal faculties of acquiring it.
James Madison
In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.
James Madison
And may I not be allowed to ... read in the character of the American people, in their devotion to true liberty and to the Constitution which is its palladium [protection], ... a Government which watches over ... the equal interdict [prohibition] against encroachments and compacts between religion and the state.
James Madison
The temple through which alone lies the road to that of Liberty.
James Madison
But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm . . . But what degree of madness could ever drive the federal government to such an extremity.
James Madison
Resolved, That the General Assembly of Virginia, doth unequivocally express a firm resolution to maintain and defend the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of this State, against every aggression either foreign or domestic, and that they will support the Government of the United States in all measures warranted by the former.
James Madison
Those who proposed the Constitution knew, and those who ratified the Constitution also knew that this is...a limited government tied down to specified powers....It was never supposed or suspected that the old Congress could give away the money of the states to encourage agriculture or for any other purpose they pleased.
James Madison
Procrastination in the beginning and precipitation towards the conclusion is the characteristic of such bodies.
James Madison
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
The proposed Constitution is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal constitution but a composition of both.
James Madison
I flatter myself [we] have in this country extinguished forever the ambitious hope of making laws for the human mind.
James Madison
In all the co-temporary discussions and comments, which the Constitution underwent, it was constantly justified and recommended on the ground, that the powers not given to the government, were withheld from it.
James Madison
We are teaching the world the great truth that Governments do better without Kings & Nobles than with them.
James Madison
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
