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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
Produce
Energy
Government
Ever
Destitute
Anarchy

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Oppressors can tyrannize only when they achieve a standing army, an enslaved press, and a disarmed populace.
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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.
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Congress should not establish a religion, and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any Manner contrary to their conscience.
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Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.
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There is not a more important and fundamental principle in legislation, than that the ways and means ought always to face the public engagements that our appropriations should ever go hand in hand with our promises.
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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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A just security to property is not afforded by that government, under which unequal taxes oppress one species of property and reward another species.
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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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Since it is impossible for the people spontaneously and universally, to move in concert towards their object and it is therefore essential, that such changes be instituted by some informal and unauthorized propositions, made by some patriotic and respectable citizen or number of citizens.
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If the public homage of a people can ever be worthy of the favorable regard of the Holy and Omniscient Being to Whom it is addressed, it must be that in which those who join in it are guided only be their free choice-by the impulse of their hearts and the dictates of their consciences.
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It is to be the assent and ratification of the several States, derived from the supreme authority in each State, the authority of the people themselves. The act, therefore establishing the Constitution, will not be a NATIONAL, but a FEDERAL act.
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We have seen the mere distinction of color made in the most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man.
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Every nation whose affairs betray a want of wisdom and stability may calculate on every loss which can be sustained from the more systematic policy of its wiser neighbors.
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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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Happily for the states, they enjoy the utmost freedom of religion. This freedom arises from that multiplicity of sects which pervades America, and which is the best and only security for religious liberty in any society.
James Madison
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An armed and trained militia is the firmest bulwark of republics - that without standing armies their liberty can never be in danger, nor with large ones safe.
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Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression.
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The internal effects of a mutable policy are still more calamitous. It poisons the blessings of liberty itself.
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The security intended to the general liberty consists in the frequent election and in the rotation of the members of Congress.
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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. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other, and the former will be objects to which the latter attach themselves.
James Madison