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Bills of attainder, ex-post facto laws and laws impairing the obligation of contracts are contrary to the first principles of the social compact, and to every principle of sound legislation.

James Madison

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James Madison
Age: 85 †
Born: 1751
Born: March 16
Died: 1836
Died: June 28
4Th U.S. President
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Port Conway
Virginia
James Madison
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A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
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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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Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression.
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The nation which reposes on the pillow of political confidence, will sooner or later end its political existence in a deadly lethargy.
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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.
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A victorious and powerful ally is but another name for a master.
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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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Nothing is so contagious as opinion, especially on questions which, being susceptible of very different glosses, beget in the mind a distrust of itself.
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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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Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty, may have found an established Clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just Government instituted to secure & perpetuate it needs them not.
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What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.
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And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.
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What is here a right towards men, is a duty towards the Creator.
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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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No man can be a competent legislator who does not add to an upright intention and a sound judgment a certain degree of knowledge of the subject on which he is to legislate.
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Who are to be the objects of popular choice? Every citizen whose merit may recommend him to the esteem and confidence of his country.
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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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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.
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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.
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What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual and surest support?
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