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The problem to be solved is, not what form of government is perfect, but which of the forms is least imperfect.

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
Presidential
Forms
Least
Perfect
Form
Problem
Government
Solved
Imperfect

More quotes by James Madison

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A distinction of property results from that very protection which a free Government gives to unequal faculties of acquiring it.
James Madison
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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
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We have the self-evident right to regulate our trade according to our own will and our own interest . . . . This right can be denied to no independent nation.
James Madison
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The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of government.
James Madison
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A certain degree of preparation for war . . . affords also the best security for the continuance of peace.
James Madison
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The purpose of the Constitution is to restrict the majority's ability to harm a minority.
James Madison
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[R]efusing or not refusing to execute a law to stamp it with its final character . . . makes the Judiciary department paramount in fact to the Legislature, which was never intended and can never be proper.
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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The power of taxing people and their property is essential to the very existence of government.
James Madison
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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.
James Madison
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Our Constitution represents the work of the finger of Almighty God.
James Madison
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No distinction seems to be more obvious than that between spiritual and temporal matters. Yet whenever they have been made objects of Legislation, they have clashed and contended with each other, till one or the other has gained the supremacy.
James Madison
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The necessity of a senate is not less indicated by the propensity of all single and numerous assemblies, to yield to the impulse of sudden and violent passions, and to be seduced by factious leaders, into intemperate and pernicious resolutions.
James Madison
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Nothing has yet been offered to invalidate the doctrine that the meaning of the Constitution may as well be ascertained by the Legislative as by the Judicial authority.
James Madison
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Congress should not establish a religion, and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any Manner contrary to their conscience.
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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The best service that can be rendered to a Country, next to that of giving it liberty, is in diffusing the mental improvement equally essential to the preservation, and the enjoyment of the blessing.
James Madison
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Having outlived so many of my contemporaries, I ought not to forget that I may be thought to have outlived myself.
James Madison
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What a perversion of the normal order of things! ... to make power the primary and central object of the social system, and Liberty but its satellite.
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