Quote

The ultimate authority resides in the people, and that if the federal government got too powerful and overstepped its authority, then the people would develop plans of resistance and resort to arms.

James Madison

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Ultimate
Authority
Overstepped
Plans
Resides
Arms
Resort
Powerful
Resorts
Government
Federal
Would
Resistance
People
Develop

More quotes by James Madison

Image
The real difference of interests, lay not between large and small, but between the Northern and Southern states. The institution of slavery and its consequences formed a line of discrimination.
James Madison
Image
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
James Madison
Image
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
Image
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.
James Madison
Image
Crisis is the rallying cry of the tyrant.
James Madison
Image
The people shall not be restrained from peacefully assembling and consulting for their common good, nor from applying to the legislature by petitions, or remonstrances for redress of their grievances.
James Madison
Image
[I]t is the reason alone, of the public, that ought to control and regulate the government.
James Madison
Image
The American people are too well schooled in the duty and practice of submitting to the will of the majority to permit any serious uneasiness on that account
James Madison
Image
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
Image
[The Republican Party] consists of those who, believing in the doctrine that mankind are capable of governing themselves and hating hereditary power as an insult to the reason and an outrage to the rights of men, are naturally offended at every public measure that does not appeal to the understanding and to the general interest of the community.
James Madison
Image
Is there a Legislative power in fact, not expressly prohibited by the Constitution, which might not, according to the doctrine of the Court, be exercised as a means of carrying into effect some specified Power?
James Madison
Image
[Christianity] existed and flourishes, not only without the support of human laws, but in spite of every opposition from them.
James Madison
Image
We look back, already, with astonishment, at the daring outrages committed by despotism, on the reason and rights of man we look forward with joy, to the period, when it shall be despoiled of all its usurpations, and bound forever in the chains, with which it had loaded its miserable victims.
James Madison
Image
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
Image
A victorious and powerful ally is but another name for a master.
James Madison
Image
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.
James Madison
Image
I am unable to conceive that the state legislatures which must feel so many motives to watch, and which possess so many means of counteracting the federal legislature, would fail either to detect or to defeat a conspiracy of the latter against the liberties of their common constituencies.
James Madison
Image
The purpose of the Constitution is to restrict the majority's ability to harm a minority.
James Madison
Image
As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed.
James Madison
Image
A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.
James Madison