Quote

All power in human hands is liable to be abused.

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
Power
Human
Humans
Abused
Liable
Presidential
Hands

More quotes by James Madison

Image
[The Republican Party] consists of those who, believing in the doctrine that mankind are capable of governing themselves and hating hereditary power as an insult to the reason and an outrage to the rights of men, are naturally offended at every public measure that does not appeal to the understanding and to the general interest of the community.
James Madison
Image
I am unable to conceive that the state legislatures which must feel so many motives to watch, and which possess so many means of counteracting the federal legislature, would fail either to detect or to defeat a conspiracy of the latter against the liberties of their common constituencies.
James Madison
Image
Truth [comes only] from those ... who cultivate their reason.
James Madison
Image
The political truths declared in that solemn manner acquire by degrees the character of fundamental maxims of free Government, and as they become incorporated with national sentiment, counteract the impulses of interest and passion.
James Madison
Image
Who does not see that . . . the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property for the support of any one establishment, may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?
James Madison
Image
There is not a shadow of right in the general government to intermingle with religion. Its least interference with it would be a most flagrant usurpation.
James Madison
Image
Measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.
James Madison
Image
There is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust.
James Madison
Image
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
Image
The proposed Constitution is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal constitution but a composition of both.
James Madison
Image
In Europe, charters of liberty have been granted by Power. In America ... charters of power [are] granted by liberty.
James Madison
Image
Is there a Legislative power in fact, not expressly prohibited by the Constitution, which might not, according to the doctrine of the Court, be exercised as a means of carrying into effect some specified Power?
James Madison
Image
In a free government the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights.
James Madison
Image
Another of my wishes is to depend as little as possible on the labour of slaves.
James Madison
Image
The power of taxing people and their property is essential to the very existence of government.
James Madison
Image
In contemplating the pecuniary resources needed for the removal of such a number to so great a distance [freed slaves to Africa], my thoughts and hopes have long been turned to the rich fund presented in the western lands of the nation . . .
James Madison
Image
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.
James Madison
Image
Conscience is the most sacred of all property.
James Madison
Image
The internal effects of a mutable policy are still more calamitous. It poisons the blessings of liberty itself.
James Madison
Image
I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.
James Madison