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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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James Madison
Age: 85 †
Born: 1751
Born: March 16
Died: 1836
Died: June 28
4Th U.S. President
Diplomat
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Port Conway
Virginia
James Madison
Jr.
President Madison
J. Madison
Madison
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More quotes by James Madison
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
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
Truth [comes only] from those ... who cultivate their reason.
James Madison
It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.
James Madison
Union of religious sentiments begets a surprising confidence, and ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption all of which facilitate the execution of mischievous projects.
James Madison
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
[I]t is the reason alone, of the public, that ought to control and regulate the government.
James Madison
Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression.
James Madison
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
James Madison
Learned Institutions ought to be favorite objects with every free people. They throw that light over the public mind which is the best security against crafty and dangerous encroachments on the public liberty.
James Madison
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
Torrents of blood have been spilt in the old world, by vain attempts of the secular arm, to extinguish Religious discord, by proscribing all difference in religious opinion. Time has at length revealed the true remedy. Every relaxation of narrow and rigorous policy, wherever it has been tried, has been found to assuage the disease.
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
Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.
James Madison
The temple through which alone lies the road to that of Liberty.
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
The better proof of reverence for that holy name would be not to profane it by making it a topic of legislative discussion.
James Madison
If men were angels, there would be no need of government.
James Madison
If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one.
James Madison
In all the co-temporary discussions and comments, which the Constitution underwent, it was constantly justified and recommended on the ground, that the powers not given to the government, were withheld from it.
James Madison
