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 MADISONThe executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.
More James Madison Quotes
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If men were angels, no government would be necessary.
JAMES MADISON -
Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.
JAMES MADISON -
All that seems indispensible in stating the account between the dead and the living, is to see that the debts against the latter do not exceed the advances made by the former.
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 -
Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.
JAMES MADISON -
The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.
JAMES MADISON -
In no instance have… the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people.
JAMES MADISON -
We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties.
JAMES MADISON -
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 -
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
JAMES MADISON -
The internal effects of a mutable policy poisons the blessings of liberty itself.
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.
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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.
JAMES MADISON -
A man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them.
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






