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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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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
Political
Concentration
Demarcation
Hands
Department
Encroachments
Government
Several
Parchment
Sufficient
Encroachment
Powers
Tyrannical
Mere
Departments
Limits
Constitutional
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Guard
More quotes by James Madison
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
It is to be the assent and ratification of the several States, derived from the supreme authority in each State, the authority of the people themselves. The act, therefore establishing the Constitution, will not be a NATIONAL, but a FEDERAL act.
James Madison
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
Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.
James Madison
How could a readiness for war in time of peace be safely prohibited, unless we could prohibit, in like manner, the preparations and establishments of every hostile nation?
James Madison
Measures should be enacted which, without violating the rights of property, would reduce extreme wealth towards a state of mediocrity, and raise extreme indigence towards a state of comfort.
James Madison
I acknowledge, in the ordinary course of government, that the exposition of the laws and Constitution devolves upon the judicial. But I beg to know upon what principle it can be contended that any one department draws from the Constitution greater powers than another in marking out the limits of the powers of the several departments.
James Madison
How a regulation so unjust in itself, so foreign to the authority of Congress, and so hurtful to the sale of public land, and smelling so strongly of an antiquated bigotry, could have received the countenance of a committee is truly a matter of astonishment.
James Madison
An efficient militia is authorized and contemplated by the Constitution and required by the spirit and safety of free government.
James Madison
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
[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
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
James Madison
Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion and Government in the Constitution of the United States, the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history.
James Madison
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
War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement
James Madison
Those who proposed the Constitution knew, and those who ratified the Constitution also knew that this is...a limited government tied down to specified powers....It was never supposed or suspected that the old Congress could give away the money of the states to encourage agriculture or for any other purpose they pleased.
James Madison
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
A public debt is a public curse.
James Madison
The American people are too well schooled in the duty and practice of submitting to the will of the majority to permit any serious uneasiness on that account
James Madison
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
