James Madison

“No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”

“The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.”

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”

“The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.”

“I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.”

“The circulation of confidence is better than the circulation of money.”

“Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”

“A watchful eye must be kept on ourselves lest while we are building ideal monuments of Renown and Bliss here we neglect to have our names enrolled in the Annals of Heaven.”

“It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in it the finger of that Almighty Hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the Revolution.”

“Would it not be as well to liberate and make soldiers at once of the blacks themselves, as to make them instruments for enlisting white soldiers? It would certainly be more consonant to the principles of liberty which ought never to be lost sight of in a contest for liberty...”

“Another of my wishes is to depend as little as possible on the labor of slaves.”

“In order to judge of the form to be given to this institution, it will be proper to take a view of the ends to be served by it. These were, — first, to protect the people against their rulers, secondly, to protect the people against the transient impressions into which they themselves might be led.”

“In the first place, I own myself the friend to a very free system of commerce, and hold it as a truth, that commercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive and impolitic — it is also a truth, that if industry and labor are left to their own course, they will generally be directed to those objects which are the most productive, and this in a more certain and direct manner than the wisdom of the most enlightened legislature could point out.”

“Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression. In our Governments, the real power lies in the majority of the Community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from the acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the constituents.”

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”

“The papers inclosed will shew that the nauseous project of amendments has not yet been either dismissed or despatched. We are so deep in them now, that right or wrong some thing must be done.”

“It is moreover to weaken in those who profess this Religion a pious confidence in its innate excellence and the patronage of its Author; and to foster in those who still reject it, a suspicion that its friends are too conscious of its fallacies to trust it to its own merits.”

“During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.”

“Attempts to enforce by legal sanctions, acts obnoxious to so great a proportion of Citizens, tend to enervate the laws in general, and to slacken the bands of Society. If it be difficult to execute any law which is not generally deemed necessary or salutary, what must be the case, where it is deemed invalid and dangerous? And what may be the effect of so striking an example of impotency in the Government, on its general authority?”

“By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.”

“Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.”

“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 his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves.”

“The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of Government.”

“No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause; because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity. With equal, nay with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges and parties at the same time.”

“To secure the public good and private rights against the danger of such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular government, is then the great object to which our inquiries are directed.”

“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”

“The apportionment of taxes on the various descriptions of property is an act which seems to require the most exact impartiality; yet there is, perhaps, no legislative act in which greater opportunity and temptation are given to a predominant party to trample on the rules of justice. Every shilling which they overburden the inferior number is a shilling saved to their own pockets.”

“A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person.”

“Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.”

“Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.”

“Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”

“A rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property, or for any other improper or wicked project.”

“The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.”

“The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex.”

“We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties.”

“The danger of disturbing the public tranquillity by interesting too strongly the public passions, is a still more serious objection against a frequent reference of constitutional questions to the decision of the whole society.”

“The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived.”

“[T]he great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means, and personal motives, to resist encroachments of the others. The provision for defence must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack.”

“The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.”

“Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.”

“A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.”

“The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of Government. But what is Government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?”

“The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.”

“In a free Government, the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights. It consists in the one case in the multiplicity of interests, and in the other in the multiplicity of sects. The degree of security in both cases, will depend on the number of interests and sects; and this may be presumed to depend on the extent of country and number of People comprehended under the same Government.”

“It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.”

“Justice is the end of Government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been, and ever will be pursued, until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Let me recommend the best medicine in the world: a long journey, at a mild season, through a pleasant country, in easy stages.”

“Twenty years will produce all the mischief that can be apprehended from the liberty to import slaves. So long a term will be more dishonorable to the National character than to say nothing about it in the Constitution.”

“The happy Union of these States is a wonder; their Constitution a miracle; their example the hope of Liberty throughout the world.”

“The circulation of confidence is better than the circulation of money.”

“Mr. MADISON thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in men. The reason of duties did not hold, as slaves are not like merchandize, consumed, &c”

“A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce, or a tragedy, or perhaps both.”

“It must not be so; because we intend this Constitution to be the great charter of Human Liberty to the unborn millions who shall enjoy its protection, and who should never see that such an institution as slavery was ever known in our midst.”

“What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?”

“The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.”

“As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.”

“It might prove a great encouragement to manumission in the southern parts of the U.S. and even afford the best hope yet presented of putting an end to the slavery, in which not less than 600,000 unhappy Negroes are now involved...”

“War contains so much folly, as well as wickedness, that much is to be hoped from the progress of reason.”

“In order to render this change eligible as well to the society as to the slaves, it would be necessary that a complete incorporation of the latter into the former should result from the act of manumission. This is rendered impossible by the prejudices of the whites, prejudices which proceeding principally from the difference of color must be considered...”

“Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.”

“The government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.”

“Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.”

“Resolved, That the General Assembly of Virginia, doth unequivocally express a firm resolution to maintain and defend the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of this State, against every aggression either foreign or domestic, and that they will support the Government of the United States in all measures warranted by the former.”

“The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to an uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government.”

“Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions agst. danger real or pretended from abroad.”

“Whenever a youth is ascertained to possess talents meriting an education which his parents cannot afford, he should be carried forward at the public expense.”

“The United States while they wish for war with no nation, will buy peace with none, it being a principle incorporated into the settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, so war is better than tribute.”

“Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.”

“the freed blacks ought to be permanently removed beyond the region occupied by or allotted to a White population”

“In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.”

“The class of citizens who provide at once their own food and their own raiment, may be viewed as the most truly independent and happy.”

“If in any instances, wrong has been done by our forefathers to people of one colour, by dispossessing them of their soil, what better atonement is now in our power than that of making what is rightfully acquired a source of justice & of blessings to a people of another colour?”

“The number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the state.”

“If these thoughts can be of any aid in your search of a remedy for the great evil under which the nation labors, you are very welcome to them. You will allow me however to add that it will be most agreeable to me, not to be publickly referred to in any use you may make of them.”

“A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce, or a tragedy, or perhaps both.”

“All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.”

“Religion & Govt. will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.”

“The personal right to acquire property, which is a natural right, gives to property, when acquired, a right to protection, as a social right.”

“A popular Government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”

“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.”

“The belief in a God All Powerful wise and good, is so essential to the moral order of the world and to the happiness of man, that arguments which enforce it cannot be drawn from too many sources nor adapted with too much solicitude to the different characters and capacities to be impressed with it.”

“The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted.”

“To the press alone, chequered as it is with abuses, the world is indebted for all the triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.”

“The happy Union of these States is a wonder; their Constitution a miracle; their example the hope of Liberty throughout the world.”

“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.”

“The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.”

“Let me recommend the best medicine in the world: a long journey, at a mild season, through a pleasant country, in easy stages.”

“In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.”

“I do not mean to discuss the question how far slavery and farming are incompatible. Our opinions agree as to the evil, moral, political, and economical, of the former.”

“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.”

“Nothing more than a change of mind, my dear.”

“Philosophy is common sense with big words.”

“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.”

“I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.”

“And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.”

“The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.”

“As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed.”

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”

“A sincere and steadfast co-operation in promoting such a reconstruction of our political system as would provide for the permanent liberty and happiness of the United States.”

“No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”

“The capacity of the female mind for studies of the highest order cannot be doubted, having been sufficiently illustrated by its works of genius, of erudition, and of science.”

“In no instance have... the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people.”

“What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual and surest support?”

“The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.”

“A man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them.”

“In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”

“Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.”

“The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to an uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government.”

“There is no maxim, in my opinion, which is more liable to be misapplied, and which, therefore, more needs elucidation, than the current one, that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong.”

“The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”

“Despotism can only exist in darkness, and there are too many lights now in the political firmament to permit it to remain anywhere, as it has heretofore done, almost everywhere.”

“The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted.”

“The happy Union of these States is a wonder; their Constitution a miracle; their example the hope of Liberty throughout the world.”

“To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.”

“Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.”

“What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual and surest support?”

“I should not regret a fair and full trial of the entire abolition of capital punishment.”

“A man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them.”

“Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.”

“War should only be declared by the authority of the people, whose toils and treasures are to support its burdens, instead of the government which is to reap its fruits.”

“Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”

“Each generation should be made to bear the burden of its own wars, instead of carrying them on, at the expense of other generations.”

“The operations of the federal government will be most extensive and important in times of war and danger; those of the state governments, in times of peace and security.”

“Commercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive, and impolitic.”

“What prudent merchant will hazard his fortunes in any new branch of commerce when he knows not that his plans may be rendered unlawful before they can be executed?”

“The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.”

“Union of religious sentiments begets a surprising confidence.”

“A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person.”

“A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country.”

“I have no doubt but that the misery of the lower classes will be found to abate whenever the Government assumes a freer aspect and the laws favor a subdivision of Property.”

“Any reading not of a vicious species must be a good substitute for the amusements too apt to fill up the leisure of the labouring classes.”

“A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.”

“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.”

“I entirely concur in the propriety of resorting to the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the nation. In that sense alone it is the legitimate Constitution.”

“A sincere and steadfast co-operation in promoting such a reconstruction of our political system as would provide for the permanent liberty and happiness of the United States.”

“The internal effects of a mutable policy poisons the blessings of liberty itself.”

“All that seems indispensible in stating the account between the dead and the living, is to see that the debts against the latter do not exceed the advances made by the former.”

“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.”

“I entirely concur in the propriety of resorting to the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the nation. In that sense alone it is the legitimate Constitution.”

“It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.”

“Whenever a youth is ascertained to possess talents meriting an education which his parents cannot afford, he should be carried forward at the public expense.”

“To the press alone, chequered as it is with abuses, the world is indebted for all the triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.”

“The class of citizens who provide at once their own food and their own raiment, may be viewed as the most truly independent and happy.”

“What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?”

“Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.”

“The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived.”

“And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.”

“The class of citizens who provide at once their own food and their own raiment, may be viewed as the most truly independent and happy.”

“The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.”

“The class of citizens who provide at once their own food and their own raiment, may be viewed as the most truly independent and happy.”

“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.”

“To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.”

“To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.”