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I flatter myself [we] have in this country extinguished forever the ambitious hope of making laws for the human mind.

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
Mind
Laws
Forever
Law
Hope
Making
Human
Extinguished
Humans
Flatter
Country
Ambitious

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Knowledge will forever govern ignorance and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
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If men were angels, there would be no need of government.
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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.
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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.
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What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.
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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.
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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.
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[I]t is the reason alone, of the public, that ought to control and regulate the government.
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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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A distinction of property results from that very protection which a free Government gives to unequal faculties of acquiring it.
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The express authority of the people alone could give validity to the Constitution.
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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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America was indebted to immigration for her settlement and prosperity. That part of America which had encouraged them most had advanced most rapidly in population, agriculture and the arts.
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At first view it might seem not to square with the republican theory, to suppose either that a majority have not the right, or that a minority will have the force to subvert a government . . . . But theoretic reasoning in this, as in most other cases, must be qualified by the lessons of practice.
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The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.
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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.
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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.
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The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of government.
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The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries.
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Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.
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