Able Quote by James Madison

The State governments possess inherent advantages, which will ever give them an influence and ascendancy over the National Government, and will for ever preclude…

— Alexander Hamilton

I am unable to conceive that the state legislatures which must feel so many motives to watch, and which possess so many means of…

— James Madison

The legislatures will have better means of information. They can discover the danger at a distance; and possessing all the organs of civil power,…

— Alexander Hamilton

It may safely be received as an axiom in our political system, that the state governments will in all possible contingencies afford complete security…

— Alexander Hamilton

The greatest single virtue of a strong legislature is not what it can do, but what it can prevent.

— J. William Fulbright

It is important to strengthen the State governments; and as this cannot be done by any change in the Federal Constitution (for the preservation…

— Thomas Jefferson

If [the legislature] will positively enact a thing to be done, the judges are not at liberty to reject it, for that were to…

— William Blackstone

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments…

— James Madison

“Political liberty—that is, the ability of societies to rule themselves—does not depend only on the degree to which a society can mobilize opposition to…

— Francis Fukuyama

There simply is no greater threat to individual liberty and the viability of our great nation than the threat that comes from the continued…

— Scott Pruitt

The frame of mind in the local legislatures seems to be exerted to prevent the federal constitution from having any good effect.

— Henry Knox

A government capable of controlling the whole, and bringing its force to a point, is one of the prerequisites for national liberty. We combine…

— Oliver Ellsworth