James Madison
James Madison
James Madison, Jr.was a political theorist, American statesman, and the fourth President of the United States. He is hailed as the "Father of the Constitution" for his pivotal role in drafting and promoting the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionUS President
Date of Birth16 March 1751
CityPort Conway, VA
CountryUnited States of America
inspirational fear freedom
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
government charity constitution-of-the-united-states
Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.
country people liberty
A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country.
tyrants rallying-cry liberty
Crisis is the rallying cry of the tyrant.
war upheaval violence
Freedom has more often been lost in small steps by progressive incrementalism, than it has been by catastrophic upheavals such as violence or war.
strength peace army
Oppressors can tyrannize only when they achieve a standing army, an enslaved press, and a disarmed populace.
real home loss
The management of foreign relations appears to be the most susceptible of abuse of all the trusts committed to a Government, because they can be concealed or disclosed, or disclosed in such parts and at such times as will best suit particular views; and because the body of the people are less capable of judging, and are more under the influence of prejudices, on that branch of their affairs, than of any other. Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.
military government president
... 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.
successful perfect presidential
Every new and successful example of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters is of importance.
peace evil would-be
Were it possible so to accelerate the intercourse between every part of the globe that all its inhabitants could be united under the superintending authority of an ecumenical Council, how great a portion of human evils would be avoided.
hands danger tyranny
The danger from legislative usurpations, which, by assembling all power in the same hands, must lead to the same tyranny as is threatened by executive usurpations.
hands political trying
It is superfluous to try by the standards of theory, a part of the constitution which is allowed on all hands to be the result not of theory, but "of a spirit of amity, and that mutual deference and concession which the peculiarity of our political situation rendered indispensable" . . . the equal vote allowed to each state, is at once a constitutional recognition of the portion of sovereignty remaining in the individual states, and an instrument for preserving that residuary sovereignty.
hands liable humans
All power in human hands is liable to be abused.
too-much reason states
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 federal legislature will be likely to attach themselves too much to local objects.