James Madison quotes - page 3

History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance. (James Madison)
The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. View quote
James Madison
If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one. View quote
James Madison
Conscience is the most sacred of all property. View quote
James Madison
The danger of silent accumulations & encroachments by Ecclesiastical Bodies have not sufficiently engaged attention in the U.S. [...] Besides the danger of a direct mixture of Religion & civil Government, there is an evil which ought to be guarded against in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by ecclesiastical Corporations. [...] The establishment of the chaplainship to Congs. is a palpable violation of equal rights, as well as of Constitutional principles. View quote
James Madison
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. View quote
James Madison
Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government. View quote
James Madison
Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty, may have found an established Clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just Government instituted to secure & perpetuate it needs them not. View quote
James Madison
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. View quote
James Madison
Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests, and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. View quote
James Madison
Some degree of abuse is inseparable from the proper use of every thing; and in no instance is this more true than in that of the press. It has accordingly been decided, by the practice of the states, that it is better to leave a few of its noxious branches to their luxuriant growth, than, by pruning them away, to injure the vigor of those yielding the proper fruits. (James Madison)
Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression. View quote
James Madison
The constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, & most prone to it. View quote
James Madison
Our opinions agree as to the evil, moral, political, and economical, of the former. View quote
James Madison
Mr. MADISON thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in men. View quote
James Madison
Slavery is, as you justly complain, a sad blot on our free country. View quote
James Madison
A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. View quote
James Madison
A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. View quote
James Madison
Democracy is the most vile form of government. View quote
James Madison
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. View quote
James Madison
[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. (James Madison)
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... View quote
James Madison
Where slavery exists, the republican theory becomes still more fallacious. View quote
James Madison
Nothing more than a change of mind, my dear. View quote
James Madison
The first question that offers itself is, whether the general form and aspect of the government be strictly republican. It is evident that no other form would be reconcilable with the genius of the people of America; with the fundamental principles of the Revolution; or with that honorable determination which animates every votary of freedom, to rest all our political experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government. If the plan of the convention, therefore, be found to depart from the republican character, its advocates must abandon it as no longer defensible. View quote
James Madison