Quote

Every new and successful example of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters is of importance.

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
Atheism
Importance
Ecclesiastical
Example
Bigots
Successful
Founders
Perfect
Presidential
Matter
Separation
Every
Civil
Matters

More quotes by James Madison

Image
Since it is impossible for the people spontaneously and universally, to move in concert towards their object and it is therefore essential, that such changes be instituted by some informal and unauthorized propositions, made by some patriotic and respectable citizen or number of citizens.
James Madison
Image
Any reading not of a vicious species must be a good substitute for the amusements too apt to fill up the leisure of the labouring classes.
James Madison
Image
The American people owe it to themselves, and to the cause of free Government, to prove by their establishments for the advancement and diffusion of knowledge, that their political Institutionsare as favorable to the intellectual and moral improvement of Man as they are conformable to his individual and social rights.
James Madison
Image
Among the numerous advantages promised by a well-constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction.
James Madison
Image
Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.
James Madison
Image
Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.
James Madison
Image
As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.
James Madison
Image
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
Image
If this spirit shall ever be so far debased, as to tolerate a law not obligatory on the legislature, as well as on the people, the people will be prepared to tolerate any thing but 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
At first view it might seem not to square with the republican theory, to suppose either that a majority have not the right, or that a minority will have the force to subvert a government . . . . But theoretic reasoning in this, as in most other cases, must be qualified by the lessons of practice.
James Madison
Image
[In a democracy] a common passion or interest will, in almost every case , be felt by a majority of the whole a communication and concert results from the form of government itself and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual.
James Madison
Image
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
Image
The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to an uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government.
James Madison
Image
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
Image
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
Image
The purpose of the Constitution is to restrict the majority's ability to harm a minority.
James Madison
Image
The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex.
James Madison
Image
Every nation whose affairs betray a want of wisdom and stability may calculate on every loss which can be sustained from the more systematic policy of its wiser neighbors.
James Madison
Image
Government is instituted to protect property of every sort as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government which impartially secures to every man whatever is his own.
James Madison