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 MADISONWe are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties.
More James Madison Quotes
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Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
JAMES MADISON -
I have no doubt but that the misery of the lower classes will be found to abate whenever the Government assumes a freer aspect and the laws favor a subdivision of Property.
JAMES MADISON -
The internal effects of a mutable policy poisons the blessings of liberty itself.
JAMES MADISON -
A man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them.
JAMES MADISON -
Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.
JAMES MADISON -
That part of America which had encouraged them most had advanced most rapidly in population, agriculture and the arts.
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 -
Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.
JAMES MADISON -
Union of religious sentiments begets a surprising confidence.
JAMES MADISON -
A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country.
JAMES MADISON -
War contains so much folly, as well as wickedness, that much is to be hoped from the progress of reason.
JAMES MADISON -
A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.
JAMES MADISON -
The operations of the federal government will be most extensive and important in times of war and danger; those of the state governments, in times of peace and security.
JAMES MADISON -
The class of citizens who provide at once their own food and their own raiment, may be viewed as the most truly independent and happy.
JAMES MADISON -
The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to an uniformity of interests.
JAMES MADISON