James Madison Quotes

Among the features peculiar to the political system of the United States, is the perfect equality of rights which it secures to every religious sect.

The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man.

Another of my wishes is to depend as little as possible on the labour of slaves.

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.

A local spirit will infallibly prevail much more in the members of Congress than a national spirit will prevail in the legislatures of the particular States.

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?

All power in human hands is liable to be abused.

In framing a system, which we wish to last for ages, we should not lose sight of the changes which ages will produce.

Knowledge will forever govern ignorance.

That is not a just government where arbitrary restrictions, exemptions, and monopolies deny to part of its citizens that free use of their faculties, and free choice of their occupations.

People will continue to seek justice until it is found, or until liberty is lost in the pursuit.

The advice nearest to my heart and deepest in my convictions is that the Union of the States be cherished and perpetuated.

[I]t is the reason alone, of the public, that ought to control and regulate the government.

[Property] embraces everything to which a man may attach a value and have a right.

Let the influx of money be ever so great, if there be no confidence, property will sink in value... The circulation of confidence is better than the circulation of money.

Some degree of abuse is inseparable from the proper use of everything.

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.

The rights of man as the foundation of just Government had been long understood but the superstructures projected had been sadly defective

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.

The better proof of reverence for that holy name would be not to profane it by making it a topic of legislative discussion.

The Federal Constitution forms a happy combination in this respect; the great and aggregate interests being referred to the national, the local and particular, to the state legislatures.

A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect and promises the cure for which we are seeking.

Extend the sphere and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have common motive to invade the rights of other citizens.

The definition of the right of suffrage is very justly regarded as a fundamental article of republican government.

It was by the sober sense of our citizens that we were safely and steadily conducted from monarchy to republicanism, and it is by the same agency alone we can be kept from falling back.

The magnitude of this evil among us is so deeply felt, and so universally acknowledged, that no merit could be greater than that of devising a satisfactory remedy for it.

The fetters imposed on liberty at home have ever been forged out of the weapons provided for defense against real, pretended, or imaginary dangers from abroad.

Security against foreign danger is one of the primitive objects of civil society. It is an avowed and essential object of the American Union.

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

[Montesquieu] lifted the veil from the venerable errors which enslaved opinion, and pointed the way to those luminous truths of which he had but a glimpse himself.

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

[Y]ou will understand the game behind the curtain too well not to perceive the old trick of turning every contingency into a resource for accumulating force in the government.

Every word of [the Constitution] decides a question between power and liberty.

Nothing could be more irrational than to give the people power, and to withhold from them information without which power is abused.

Respect for character is always diminished in proportion to the number among whom the blame or praise is to be divided.

The primary function of government is to protect the minority of the opulent from the majority of the poor.

War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement

... large and permanent military establishments ... are forbidden by the principles of free government, and against the necessity of which the militia were meant to be a constitutional bulwark.

In Europe, charters of liberty have been granted by Power. In America ... charters of power [are] granted by liberty.

A victorious and powerful ally is but another name for a master.

An oath-the strongest of religious ties.

What is here a right towards men, is a duty towards the Creator.

I love the summer.... the warm weather, hangin out with friends, and swimmin in the warm water..... but most importantly grabin a glove and a ball and playin some softball in the heat.

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.

These considerations and many others that might be mentioned prove, and experience confirms it, that artisans and manufacturers will commonly be disposed to bestow their votes on merchants.

Where a majority are united by a common sentiment, and have an opportunity, the rights of the minor party become insecure.

[It] is indispensable that some provision should be made for defending the Community agst [against] the incapicity, negligence or perfidy of the chief Magistrate.

Those who are to conduct a war cannot in the nature of things, be proper or safe judges, whether a war ought to be commenced, continued, or concluded.

The best service that can be rendered to a Country, next to that of giving it liberty, is in diffusing the mental improvement equally essential to the preservation, and the enjoyment of the blessing.

The citizens of the United States have peculiar motives to support the energy of their constitutional charters.