A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce, or a tragedy, or perhaps both.
JAMES MADISONA well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.
More James Madison Quotes
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The personal right to acquire property, which is a natural right, gives to property, when acquired, a right to protection, as a social right.
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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.
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Any reading not of a vicious species must be a good substitute for the amusements too apt to fill up the leisure of the labouring classes.
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The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.
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In no instance have… the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people.
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If men were angels, no government would be necessary.
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There is no maxim, in my opinion, which is more liable to be misapplied, and which, therefore, more needs elucidation, than the current one, that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong.
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The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.
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The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.
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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.
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The circulation of confidence is better than the circulation of money.
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The happy Union of these States is a wonder; their Constitution a miracle; their example the hope of Liberty throughout the world.
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Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.
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A man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them.
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Learned Institutions ought to be favorite objects with every free people.
JAMES MADISON