110+ James Madison Quotes On Constitution, Government And Democracy

James Madison was the fourth President of the United States, serving from 1809 to 1817. He was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States and is hailed as the “Father of the Constitution” for being instrumental in the drafting of the Constitution in 1787. He also wrote the first ten amendments to the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights. Following is our collection on famous quotes by James Madison on constitution, government, democracy.

Top 10 James Madison Quotes

1. If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
2. Oppressors can tyrannize only when they achieve a standing army, an enslaved press, and a disarmed populace.
3. Crisis is the rallying cry of the tyrant.
4. Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.
5. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
6. The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.
7. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country.
8. The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.
9. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
10. 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.

James Madison Short Quotes

• The circulation of confidence is better than the circulation of money.
• No error is more certain than the one proceeding from a hasty and superficial view of the subject.
• Philosophy is common sense with big words.
• Despotism can only exist in darkness.
• What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?
• Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.
• The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.
• Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
• Liberty is to faction what air is to fire.
• I should not regret a fair and full trial of the entire abolition of capital punishment.

James Madison Quotes About Constitution

We have staked the whole future of our new nation, not upon the power of government; far from it. We have staked the future of all our political constitutions upon the capacity of each of ourselves to govern ourselves according to the moral principles of the Ten Commandments. — James Madison

If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one. — James Madison

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. — James Madison

Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government. — James Madison

Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion and Government in the Constitution of the United States, the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history. — James Madison

Liberty and order will never be perfectly safe until a trespass on the Constitution provisions for either, shall be felt with the same keenness that resents and invasion of the dearest rights. — James Madison

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. — James Madison

A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. — James Madison

Our Constitution represents the work of the finger of Almighty God. — James Madison

I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents. — James Madison

James Madison Quotes About Government

The civil rights of none, shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext infringed. — James Madison

To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea. — James Madison

The governments of Europe are afraid to trust the people with arms. If they did, the people would certainly shake off the yoke of tyranny, as America did. — James Madison

The problem to be solved is, not what form of government is perfect, but which of the forms is least imperfect. — James Madison

History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and it's issuance. — James Madison

Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been, and ever will be pursued, until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit. — James Madison

If men were angels, no government would be necessary. — James Madison

Democracies have been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death. — James Madison

That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest. — 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

James Madison Quotes About Democracy

Measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority. — James Madison

By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest... The latent causes of faction are sown in the nature of man. — James Madison

It may be concluded that a pure democracy . . . can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction. — James Madison

If we advert to the nature of republican government, we shall find that the censorial power is in the people over the government, and not in the government over the people. — James Madison

A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person. — James Madison

[In a democracy] a common passion or interest will, in almost every case , be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert results from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. — James Madison

Democracy is the most vile form of government. — James Madison

Where a majority are united by a common sentiment, and have an opportunity, the rights of the minor party become insecure. — James Madison

Democracy was the right of the people to choose their own tyrant. — James Madison

The effect of a representative democracy is to refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of the nation. — James Madison

James Madison Quotes About Federalism

The proposed Constitution is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal constitution; but a composition of both. — James Madison

In this relation, then, the proposed government cannot be deemed a national one; since its jurisdiction extends to certain enumerated objects only, and leaves to the several states, a residuary and inviolable sovereignty over all other objects. — James Madison

The powers of the federal government are enumerated; it can only operate in certain cases; it has legislative powers on defined and limited objects, beyond which it cannot extend its jurisdiction. — James Madison

I am unable to conceive that the state legislatures which must feel so many motives to watch, and which possess so many means of counteracting the federal legislature, would fail either to detect or to defeat a conspiracy of the latter against the liberties of their common constituencies. — James Madison

I wish not to be regarded as an advocate for the particular organizations of the several state governments . . . they carry strong marks of the haste, and still stronger marks of the inexperience, under which they were framed. — James Madison

The appointment of senators by the state legislatures . . . is recommended by the double advantage of favoring a select appointment, and of giving to the state governments such an agency in the formation of the federal government, as must secure the authority of the former. — James Madison

That useful alterations will be suggested by experience, could not but be foreseen . . . . It moreover equally enables the general and state governments to originate the amendment of errors as they may be pointed out by the experience on one side or on the other. — James Madison

Another advantage accruing from this ingredient in the constitution of a senate, is the additional impediment it must prove against improper acts of legislation. No law or resolution can now be passed without the concurrence first of a majority of the people, and then of a majority of the states. — James Madison

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. — James Madison

Of all the objections which have been framed against the federal Constitution, this is perhaps the most extraordinary. Whilst the objection itself is levelled against a pretended oligarchy, the principle of it strikes at the very root of republican government. — James Madison

James Madison Quotes About Education

Cursed be all that learning that is contrary to the cross of Christ. — James Madison

Congress shall have Power . . . to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Time to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries. — James Madison

Learned Institutions ought to be favorite objects with every free people. They throw that light over the public mind which is the best security against crafty and dangerous encroachments on the public liberty. — James Madison

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. — James Madison

It is certain that every class is interested in [educational] establishments which give to the human mind its highest improvements, and to every Country its truest and most durable celebrity. — James Madison

At cheaper and nearer seats of Learning parents with slender incomes may place their sons in a course of education putting them on a level with the sons of the Richest. — James Madison

The best service that can be rendered to a Country, next to that of giving it liberty, is in diffusing the mental improvement equally essential to the preservation, and the enjoyment of the blessing. — James Madison

James Madison Quotes About People

Disarm the people- that is the best and most effective way to enslave them. — James Madison

I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. — James Madison

A people armed and free, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition and is a bulwark for the nation against foreign invasion and domestic oppression. — James Madison

It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood. — James Madison

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 as individuals, by the clamors of an impatient avidity for immediate and immoderate gain. — James Madison

The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable. — James Madison

In no instance have... the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people. — James Madison

In suits at common law, trial by jury in civil cases is as essential to secure the liberty of the people as any one of the pre-existent rights of nature. — James Madison

Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. — 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

James Madison Quotes About Liberty

It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad. — James Madison

A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. — James Madison

Our country, if it does justice to itself, will be the workshop of liberty to the civilized world. — James Madison

Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power. — James Madison

As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. — James Madison

Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. — James Madison

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

...Freedom arises from the multiplicity of sects, which prevades America and which is the best and only security for religious liberty in any society. For where there is such a variety of sects, there cannot be a majority of any one sect to oppress and persecute the rest. — James Madison

Conscience is the most sacred of all property. — James Madison

[N]o religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States. — James Madison

James Madison Quotes About Danger

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

The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home. — James Madison

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. — James Madison

Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression. — James Madison

The strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast; ambition, avarice, vanity, the honorable or venal love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace. — James Madison

It is a melancholy reflection that liberty should be equally exposed to danger whether the government have too much power or too little power and that the line which divides these extremes should be so inaccurately defined by experience. — James Madison

Temporary deviations from fundamental principles are always more or less dangerous. When the first pretext fails, those who become interested in prolonging the evil will rarely be at a loss for other pretexts. — James Madison

The danger of disturbing the public tranquillity by interesting too strongly the public passions, is a still more serious objection against a frequent reference of constitutional questions to the decision of the whole society. — James Madison

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. — James Madison

An armed and trained militia is the firmest bulwark of republics - that without standing armies their liberty can never be in danger, nor with large ones safe. — James Madison

James Madison Quotes About Property

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

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

By rendering the labor of one, the property of the other, they cherish pride, luxury, and vanity on one side; on the other, vice and servility, or hatred and revolt. — James Madison

Conscience is the most sacred of all property; other property depending in part on positive law, the exercise of that, being a natural and unalienable right. — 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 rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted. — James Madison

The power of taxing people and their property is essential to the very existence of government. — James Madison

Who does not see that . . . the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property for the support of any one establishment, may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever? — James Madison

Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government which impartially secures to every man whatever is his own. — James Madison

The most common and durable source of faction has been the various and unequal distribution of property. — James Madison

James Madison Famous Quotes And Sayings

In the first place, it is to be remembered, that the general government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws. Its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any. — James Madison

Liberty is to faction, what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be a less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency. — James Madison

Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect. — James Madison

The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries. — James Madison

With respect to the words "general welfare," I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators. — James Madison

The power to declare war, including the power of judging the causes of war, is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature. — James Madison

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 be evidently greater where the whole legislative trust is lodged in the hands of one body of men, than where the concurrence of separate and dissimilar bodies is required in every public act. — James Madison

A watchful eye must be kept on ourselves lest while we are building ideal monuments of Renown and Bliss here we neglect to have our names enrolled in the Annals of Heaven. — James Madison

Each generation should be made to bear the burden of its own wars, instead of carrying them on, at the expense of other generations. — James Madison

But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm . . . But what degree of madness could ever drive the federal government to such an extremity. — James Madison

America was indebted to immigration for her settlement and prosperity. That part of America which had encouraged them most had advanced most rapidly in population, agriculture and the arts. — James Madison

Among the numerous advantages promised by a well-constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction. — James Madison

It is very certain that [the commerce clause] grew out of the abuse of the power by the importing States in taxing the non-importing, and was intended as a negative and preventive provision against injustice among the States themselves, rather than as a power to be used for the positive purposes of the General Government. — James Madison

The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse. — James Madison

[I]t is more convenient to prevent the passage of a law, than to declare it void after it has passed. — James Madison

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, or in the breasts of benevolent enthusiasts. — James Madison

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

[T]he great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachment of the others. — James Madison

And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together. — James Madison

What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. — 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

The safety and happiness of society are the objects at which all political institutions aim, and to which all such institutions must be sacrificed. — James Madison

The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the state shall not be questioned. — James Madison

The aim of every political Constitution, is or ought to be first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust. — James Madison

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 not, like the fabled Goddess of Wisdom, the offspring of a single brain. It ought to be regarded as the work of many heads and many hands. — James Madison

The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex. — James Madison

I entirely concur in the propriety of resorting to the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the nation. In that sense alone it is the legitimate Constitution. And if that is not the guide in expounding it, there may be no security. — James Madison

It is a misfortune incident to republican government, though in a less degree than to other governments, that those who administer it, may forget their obligations to their constituents, and prove unfaithful to their important trust. — James Madison

What a perversion of the normal order of things! ... to make power the primary and central object of the social system, and Liberty but its satellite. — James Madison

A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions. — James Madison

It is of great importance in a republic, not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers; but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. — James Madison

The happy Union of these States is a wonder; their Constitution a miracle; their example the hope of Liberty throughout the world. — James Madison

...several of the first presidents, including Jefferson and Madison, generally refused to issue public prayers, despite importunings to do so. Under pressure, Madison relented in the War Of 1812, but held to his belief that chaplains shouldn't be appointed to the military or be allowed to open Congress. — 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

Stability in government is essential to national character and to the advantages annexed to it, as well as to that repose and confidence in the minds of the people, which are among the chief blessings of civil society. — James Madison

It has been said that all Government is an evil. It would be more proper to say that the necessity of any Government is a misfortune. This necessity however exists; and the problem to be solved is, not what form of Government is perfect, but which of the forms is least imperfect. — James Madison

Because we hold it for 'a fundamental and undeniable truth', that religion or 'the duty which we owe to our Creator' and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence. — James Madison

The great desideratum in Government is, so to modify the sovereignty as that it may be sufficiently neutral between different parts of the Society to controul one part from invading the rights of another, and at the same time sufficiently controuled itself, from setting up an interest adverse to that of the entire Society. — James Madison

Life Lessons by James Madison

1. James Madison taught us the importance of compromise, as he was able to bring together different parties and factions to create the US Constitution.
2. He also showed us how to be a strong leader and stand up for our beliefs, even when faced with adversity.
3. Finally, Madison demonstrated the value of education, as he was an avid reader and studied the history of government to inform his political decisions.