James Madison Quotes
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The smaller the society, the fewer probably will be the distinct parties and interests composing it; the fewer the distinct parties and interests, the more frequently will a majority be found of the same party; . . . the more easily will they concert and execute their plans of oppression.
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With regard to Banks, they have taken too deep and too wide a root in social transactions, to be got rid of altogether, if that were desirable. They have a hold on public opinion, which alone would make it expedient to aim rather at the improvement, than the suppression of them. As now generally constituted, their advantages whatever they be, are outweighed by the excesses of their paper emissions, and the partialities and corruption with which they are administered.
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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.
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Conscience is the most sacred of all property; other property depending in part on positive law, the exercise of that being a natural and unalienable right. To guard a man's house as his castle, to pay public and enforce private debts with the most exact faith, can give no title to invade a man's conscience, which is more sacred than his castle, or to withhold from it that debt of protection for which the public faith is pledged by the very nature and original conditions of the social pact.
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Were it possible so to accelerate the intercourse between every part of the globe that all its inhabitants could be united under the superintending authority of an ecumenical Council, how great a portion of human evils would be avoided.
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If men were angels, there would be no need of government.
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I go on the principle that a public debt is a public curse and in a republican government more than in any other.
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The growing wealth aquired by them corporations never fails to be a source of abuses.
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One hundred and seventy-three despots would surely be as oppressive as one.
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It is in vain to oppose constitutional barriers to the impulse of self-preservation. It is worse than in vain; because it plants in the Constitution itself necessary usurpations of power, every precedent of which is a germ of unnecessary and multiplied repetitions.
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A bad cause seldom fails to betray itself.
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Happily for America, happily, we trust, for the whole human race, they pursued a new and more noble course. They accomplished a revolution which has no parallel in the annals of human society.
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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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there ought always to be a constitutional method of giving efficacy to constitutional provisions. What for instance would avail restrictions on the authority of the state legislatures, without some constitutional mode of enforcing the observance of them? . . . This power must either be a direct negative on the state laws, or an authority in the federal courts, to over-rule such as might be in manifest contravention of the articles of union.
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Man, who preys both on the vegetable and animal species, is himself a prey to neither. He too possesses the reproductive principle far beyond the degree requisite for the bare continuance of his species. What becomes of the surplus of human life to which this principle is competent?
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The proposed Constitution is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal constitution; but a composition of both.
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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.
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If slavery, as a national evil, is to be abolished, and it be just that it be done at the national expense, the amount of the expense is not a paramount consideration.
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The purpose of the Constitution is to restrict the majority's ability to harm a minority.
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The free system of government we have established is so congenial with reason, with common sense, and with a universal feeling, that it must produce approbation and a desire of imitation, as avenues may be found for truth to the knowledge of nations.
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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.
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The management of foreign relations appears to be the most susceptible of abuse of all the trusts committed to a Government, because they can be concealed or disclosed, or disclosed in such parts and at such times as will best suit particular views; and because the body of the people are less capable of judging, and are more under the influence of prejudices, on that branch of their affairs, than of any other. Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.
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Before any man can be considered as a member of Civil Society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governour of the Universe: And if a member of Civil Society, do it with a saving of his allegiance to the Universal Sovereign. We maintain therefore that in matters of Religion, no man's right is abridged by the institution of Civil Society and that Religion is wholly exempt from its cognizance.
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Can it be of less consequence that the meaning of a Constitution should be fixed and known, than a meaning of a law should be so?
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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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[I]t is more convenient to prevent the passage of a law, than to declare it void after it has passed.
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If our nation is ever taken over, it will be taken over from within.
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From the the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results.
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[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 encroachment of the others.
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Related Authors
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Benjamin Franklin Founding Father of the United States -
Dolley Madison Former First Lady of the United States -
Alexander Hamilton Founding Father of the United States -
James K. Polk 11th U.S. President -
James Buchanan 15th U.S. President -
Andrew Jackson 7th U.S. President -
Martin Van Buren 8th U.S. President -
John Locke Philosopher -
Thomas Jefferson 3rd U.S. President -
George Washington 1st U.S. President -
George Mason Statesman -
William Henry Harrison 9th U.S. President -
James A. Garfield 20th U.S. President -
Patrick Henry Governor of Virginia -
Abraham Lincoln 16th U.S. President -
John Adams 2nd U.S. President -
Aaron Burr Former Vice President of the United States -
John Quincy Adams 6th U.S. President -
James Monroe 5th U.S. President -
Thomas Paine Author