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The future and success of America is not in this Constitution, but in the laws of God upon which this Constitution is founded.

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
Upon
Future
Success
America
Founded
Laws
Constitution
Law

More quotes by James Madison

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Nothing could be more irrational than to give the people power, and to withhold from them information without which power is abused.
James Madison
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It will be remembered, that a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles is solemnly enjoined by most of the state constitutions, and particularly by our own, as a necessary safeguard against the danger of degeneracy, to which republics are liable, as well as other governments, though in a less degree than others.
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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Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.
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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The internal effects of a mutable policy are still more calamitous. It poisons the blessings of liberty itself.
James Madison
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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
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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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The settled opinion here is that religion is essentially distinct from Civil Govt. and exempt from its cognizance that a connection between them is injurious to both.
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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Procrastination in the beginning and precipitation towards the conclusion is the characteristic of such bodies.
James Madison
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These considerations and many others that might be mentioned prove, and experience confirms it, that artisans and manufacturers will commonly be disposed to bestow their votes on merchants.
James Madison
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No government, any more than an individual, will long be respected without being truly respectable nor be truly respectable, without possessing a certain portion of order and stability.
James Madison
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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
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A standing army is one of the greatest mischief that can possibly happen.
James Madison
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[In government] the constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as that each may be a check on the other-that the private interest of every individual may be a sentinel over the public rights.
James Madison
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With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.
James Madison
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We are teaching the world the great truth that Governments do better without Kings & Nobles than with them.
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