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Government destitute of energy, will ever produce anarchy.

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
Destitute
Anarchy
Produce
Energy
Government
Ever

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In a free government the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights.
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Those who proposed the Constitution knew, and those who ratified the Constitution also knew that this is...a limited government tied down to specified powers....It was never supposed or suspected that the old Congress could give away the money of the states to encourage agriculture or for any other purpose they pleased.
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What a perversion of the normal order of things! ... to make power the primary and central object of the social system, and Liberty but its satellite.
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Our country, if it does justice to itself, will be the workshop of liberty to the civilized world.
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The express authority of the people alone could give validity to the Constitution.
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Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society.
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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.
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Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.
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I wish not to be regarded as an advocate for the particular organizations of the several state governments . . . they carry strong marks of the haste, and still stronger marks of the inexperience, under which they were framed.
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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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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.
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At cheaper and nearer seats of Learning parents with slender incomes may place their sons in a course of education putting them on a level with the sons of the Richest.
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Bills of attainder, ex-post facto laws and laws impairing the obligation of contracts are contrary to the first principles of the social compact, and to every principle of sound legislation.
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If man is not fit to govern himself, how can he be fit to govern someone else?
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Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this relation, then, the new Constitution will, if established, be a FEDERAL, and not a NATIONAL constitution.
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If we are to take for the criterion of truth the majority of suffrages, they ought to be gotten from those philosophic and patriotic citizens who cultivate their reason.
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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.
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The appointment of senators by the state legislatures . . . is recommended by the double advantage of favoring a select appointment, and of giving to the state governments such an agency in the formation of the federal government, as must secure the authority of the former.
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THE Constitution proposed by the convention may be considered under two general points of view. The FIRST relates to the sum or quantity of power which it vests in the government, including the restraints imposed on the States. The SECOND, to the particular structure of the government, and the distribution of this power among its branches.
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In Europe, charters of liberty have been granted by Power. In America ... charters of power [are] granted by liberty.
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