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

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

Bear Burden Each Generation Made Own War
To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.
JAMES MADISON

Form Government Happiness Liberty People Secure Suppose Virtue
If men were angels, no government would be necessary.
JAMES MADISON

Angel Government Men Necessary
Despotism can only exist in darkness, and there are too many lights now in the political firmament to permit it to remain anywhere, as it has heretofore done, almost everywhere.
JAMES MADISON

Darkness Exist Firmament Light Many Now Political
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

Arm Best Body Compose Defense Militia Most Natural People Regulated Trained
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

Advantage Arm Being Citizen Country Government People Right Trust
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

Danger Extensive Federal Government Important Most Operation Time War
I should not regret a fair and full trial of the entire abolition of capital punishment.
JAMES MADISON

Abolition Capital Entire Fair Punishment Regret Trail
The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.
JAMES MADISON

Advantage Diffusion Guardian Knowledge Liberty Only True
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
JAMES MADISON

Come Country Enemy Fight Guise Land Oppression
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

Done Doubt Every Example Less Mix New Past Religion Succeed Together
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

Diversity Faculty Insuperable Man Obstacle Originate Property Right
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.
JAMES MADISON

Class Good Labour Leisure Read Species Substitute Vicious
Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.
JAMES MADISON

Done Generally Interest Power Wrong
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

Cherish Labor Luxury Other Pride Property Render Vanity
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

Amde Avail Choice Law Little Men Own

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

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

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