Quote

I hope this will find you...enjoying the commencement of a new year with every prospect that can make it a happy one.

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
Hope
Enjoy
Find
Every
Commencement
Years
Prospect
Make
Enjoying
Year
Happy

More quotes by James Madison

Image
I am unable to conceive that the state legislatures which must feel so many motives to watch, and which possess so many means of counteracting the federal legislature, would fail either to detect or to defeat a conspiracy of the latter against the liberties of their common constituencies.
James Madison
Image
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
Image
It is a misfortune incident to republican government, though in a less degree than to other governments, that those who administer it, may forget their obligations to their constituents, and prove unfaithful to their important trust.
James Madison
Image
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
Image
The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man.
James Madison
Image
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
Image
By rendering the labor of one, the property of the other, they cherish pride, luxury, and vanity on one side on the other, vice and servility, or hatred and revolt.
James Madison
Image
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.
James Madison
Image
Democracies have been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property and in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death.
James Madison
Image
But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm . . . But what degree of madness could ever drive the federal government to such an extremity.
James Madison
Image
War should only be declared by the authority of the people, whose toils and treasures are to support its burdens, instead of the government which is to reap its fruits.
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
It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage...Before any man can be considered as a member of Civil Society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governor of the Universe.
James Madison
Image
We have staked the whole future of our new nation, not upon the power of government far from it. We have staked the future of all our political constitutions upon the capacity of each of ourselves to govern ourselves according to the moral principles of the Ten Commandments.
James Madison
Image
Temporary deviations from fundamental principles are always more or less dangerous. When the first pretext fails, those who become interested in prolonging the evil will rarely be at a loss for other pretexts.
James Madison
Image
It is vain to say that enlightened statesmen will always be able to adjust their interests. Enlightened men will not always be at the helm.
James Madison
Image
No free country has ever been without Parties, which are a natural offspring of freedom.
James Madison
Image
[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
Image
A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country.
James Madison
Image
... the State Legislatures will jealously and closely watch the operations of this Government, and be able to resist with more effect every assumption of power, than any other power on earth can do and the greatest opponents to a Federal Government admit the State Legislatures to be sure guardians of the people's liberty.
James Madison