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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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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
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Citizens
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Liberty
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Kingdoms
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Folly
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More quotes by James Madison

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Having outlived so many of my contemporaries, I ought not to forget that I may be thought to have outlived myself.
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I should not regret a fair and full trial of the entire abolition of capital punishment.
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As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed.
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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 may be assured by past experience, that such a practice [as some states charging high taxes on goods from other states] would be introduced by future contrivances and both by that and a common knowledge of human affairs, that it would nourish unceasing animosities, and not improbably terminate in serious interruptions of the public tranquility.
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Government destitute of energy, will ever produce anarchy.
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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I love the summer.... the warm weather, hangin out with friends, and swimmin in the warm water..... but most importantly grabin a glove and a ball and playin some softball in the heat.
James Madison
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What is the structure of government that will best guard against the precipitate counsels and factious combinations for unjust purposes, without a sacrifice of the fundamental principle of republicanism?
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Nothing is so contagious as opinion, especially on questions which, being susceptible of very different glosses, beget in the mind a distrust of itself.
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Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.
James Madison
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A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person.
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But the mild voice of reason, pleading the cause of an enlarged and permanent interest, is but too often drowned, before public bodies as well as individuals, by the clamors of an impatient avidity for immediate and immoderate gain.
James Madison
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A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.
James Madison
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A victorious and powerful ally is but another name for a master.
James Madison
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[I]t is the reason alone, of the public, that ought to control and regulate the government.
James Madison
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What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual and surest support?
James Madison
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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
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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.
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[Christianity] existed and flourishes, not only without the support of human laws, but in spite of every opposition from them.
James Madison