Quotes By 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.

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived.

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.

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

Let me recommend the best medicine in the world: a long journey, at a mild season, through a pleasant country, in easy stages.

Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government.

In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.

Whenever a youth is ascertained to possess talents meriting an education which his parents cannot afford, he should be carried forward at the public expense.

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.

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.

A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.