All James Madison Quotes
- The definition of the right of suffrage is very justly regarded as a fundamental article of republican government. Article
- But the mild voice of reason, pleading the cause of an enlarged and permanent interest, is but too often drowned, before public bodies as well… Avidity
- The passions, therefore, not the reason, of the public would sit in judgment. But it is the reason, alone, of the public, that ought to… Alone
- But cool and candid people will at once reflect, that the purest of human blessings must have a portion of alloy in them, that the… Abused
- 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… Artisans
- America united with a handful of troops, or without a single soldier, exhibits a more forbidding posture to foreign ambition than America disunited, with a… Ambition
- A universal peace, it is to be feared, is in the catalogue of events, which will never exist but in the imaginations of visionary philosophers,… Benevolent
- 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
- The members of the legislative department . . . are numerous. They are distributed and dwell among the people at large. Their connections of blood,… Acquaintance
- The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex. Activity
- One hundred and seventy-three despots would surely be as oppressive as one. Congress
- [Regarding legislative assemblies,] the number ought at most to be kept within a certain limit, in order to avoid the confusion and intemperance of a… All
- 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… Congress
- For the same reason that the members of the State legislatures will be unlikely to attach themselves sufficiently to national objects, the members of the… Attach
- [I]t is more convenient to prevent the passage of a law, than to declare it void after it has passed. Congress
- The people can never willfully betray their own interests: But they may possibly be betrayed by the representatives of the people; and the danger will… Act
- I have appealed to our own experience for the truth of what I advance on this subject [that the legislative power is the predominant power].… Administration
- The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation and involves the spirit of party and faction in the… Congress
- You give me a credit to which I have no claim in calling me "the writer of the Constitution of the United States." This was… Brain
- Whatever may be the judgement pronounced on the competency of the architects of the Constitution, or whatever may be the destiny of the edifice prepared… Anxiously
- Whilst the last members were signing it Doctr. Franklin looking towards the Presidents chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be… Art
- It would have marked a want of foresight in the convention, which our own experience would have rendered inexcusable. Constitutional Convention
- The best reason to be assigned, in this case, for not having made the Constitution more free from a charge of uncertainty in its meaning,… Any
- It may not be improper, however, to remark two consequences, evidently flowing from an extension of the federal power to every subject falling within the… Allotted
- THE Constitution proposed by the convention may be considered under two general points of view. The FIRST relates to the sum or quantity of power… Among