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There is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust.

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
Certain
Circumspection
Depravity
Distrust
Voting
Degree
Requires
Degrees
Mankind

More quotes by James Madison

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From the the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results.
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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.
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[Property] embraces everything to which a man may attach a value and have a right.
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A people armed and free, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition and is a bulwark for the nation against foreign invasion and domestic oppression.
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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.
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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
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We are teaching the world the great truth that Governments do better without Kings & Nobles than with them. The merit will be doubled by the other lesson that Religion Flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.
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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
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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.
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I go on the principle that a public debt is a public curse and in a republican government more than in any other.
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The power of taxing people and their property is essential to the very existence of government.
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No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity. With equal, nay with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges and parties at the same time.
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Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.
James Madison
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[The proposed establishment] will have a . . . tendency to banish our Citizens. . . . To superadd a fresh motive to emigration by revoking the liberty which they now enjoy, would be the same species of folly which has dishonoured and depopulated flourishing kingdoms.
James Madison
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This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land.
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No man can be a competent legislator who does not add to an upright intention and a sound judgment a certain degree of knowledge of the subject on which he is to legislate.
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.
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Public opinion sets bounds to every government, and is the real sovereign in every free one.
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That diabolical Hell conceived principle of persecution rages amoung some and to their eternal Infamy the Clergy can furnish their Quota of Imps for such business.
James Madison
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The means of defence against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.
James Madison