James Madison Quotes

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James Madison

Profession : President

Birth : March 16, 1751

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

James Madison

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?

James Madison

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.

James Madison

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

James Madison

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.

James Madison

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

James Madison

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?

James Madison

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.

James Madison

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

James Madison

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.

James Madison

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.

James Madison

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.

James Madison

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.

James Madison

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.

James Madison

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

James Madison

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

James Madison

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

James Madison

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

James Madison

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.

James Madison

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.

James Madison