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All power in human hands is liable to be abused.

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
Power
Human
Humans
Abused
Liable
Presidential
Hands

More quotes by James Madison

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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
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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
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The inference to which we are brought is that the causes of faction cannot be removed and that relief is only to be sought in the means of controlling its effects.
James Madison
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There is an evil which ought to be guarded against in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by...corporations. The power of all corporations ought to be limited in this respect. The growing wealth acquired by them never fails to be a source of abuses.
James Madison
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Crisis is the rallying cry of the tyrant.
James Madison
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Whilst the last members were signing it Doctr. Franklin looking towards the Presidents chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him, that Painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their art a rising from a setting sun.
James Madison
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If we are to take for the criterion of truth the majority of suffrages, they ought to be gotten from those philosophic and patriotic citizens who cultivate their reason.
James Madison
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[A] mere demarcation on parchment of the constitutional limits of the several departments is not a sufficient guard against those encroachments which lead to a tyrannical concentration of all the powers of government in the same hands.
James Madison
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The Constitution of the U.S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion.
James Madison
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Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society.
James Madison
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[Exchange] the galling burden of bachelorship for the easy yoke of matrimony.
James Madison
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If we advert to the nature of republican government, we shall find that the censorial power is in the people over the government, and not in the government over the people.
James Madison
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[The public has] the habit now of invalidating opinions emanating from me by reference to my age and infirmities.
James Madison
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These considerations and many others that might be mentioned prove, and experience confirms it, that artisans and manufacturers will commonly be disposed to bestow their votes on merchants.
James Madison
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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.
James Madison
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The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries.
James Madison
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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.
James Madison
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Every new and successful example of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters is of importance.
James Madison
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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
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There is not a more important and fundamental principle in legislation, than that the ways and means ought always to face the public engagements that our appropriations should ever go hand in hand with our promises.
James Madison