60 James Madison Quotes with Notable Meanings
– James Madison Quotes –
We dedicate this article to James Madison quotes. We trust you would have the best read as you will as well get motivated by the life and quotes of James Madison.
James Madison Quote
James Madison Jr. (March 16, 1751 – June 28, 1836) was an American statesman, diplomat, expansionist, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the United States’ fourth president from 1809 to 1817.
For his key role in the creation and promotion of the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights, he is known as the “Father of the Constitution.” He co-wrote The Federalist Papers, co-founded the Democratic-Republican Party, and served as President Thomas Jefferson’s 5th Secretary of State from 1801 until 1809.
Madison, a member of the Virginia House of Delegates and the Continental Congress during and after the American Revolutionary War, was born into a prominent Virginia planter family.
He became unsatisfied with the Articles of Confederation’s weak national government and helped to organize the Constitutional Convention, which drafted a new constitution to replace the Articles of Confederation.
Madison’s Virginia Plan provided the foundation for the Constitutional Convention’s debates, and he was one of the convention’s most powerful figures.
He was a key figure in the drive to ratify the Constitution, and he collaborated on The Federalist Papers, a collection of pro-ratification writings that became one of the most famous works of political science in American history, with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay.
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James Madison Father of the Constitution
Madison rose to prominence in the House of Representatives after the Constitution was ratified, and he became a close adviser to President George Washington.
He is credited with being the driving force behind the passage of the Bill of Rights, which enshrines in the Constitution protections of personal freedoms and rights.
Madison attacked Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton’s economic policy and the resulting consolidation of power in the early 1790s.
He co-founded the Democratic-Republican Party with Jefferson, which was one of the country’s first major political parties, alongside Hamilton’s Federalist Party.
Madison served as Jefferson’s Secretary of State from 1801 until 1809 when he was elected president. He oversaw the Louisiana Purchase, which increased the size of the United States.
Following Jefferson’s victory in the 1808 presidential election, Madison became his successor. He led the United States into the War of 1812 after diplomatic complaints and a trade boycott failed to stop British seizures of American shipping.
Although the conflict was a bureaucratic nightmare that ended in a stalemate, many Americans hailed it as a successful “second battle of independence” against Britain.
Madison was re-elected in 1812 as the war progressed, though by a lower margin than in 1808.
The war persuaded Madison that a bigger federal government was required. He presided over the establishment of the United States’ Second Bank and the passage of the Protective Tariff of 1816.
Madison’s presidency resulted in the addition of 23 million acres of Native American land, either by treaties or battle.
Power of Government Quotes
The quotes below are James Madison quotes on the power of government:
1. The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.
2. I believe there are more instances of theabridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.
3. It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice people that the laws if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.
4. If men were angels no government would be necessary
5. The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. Men power.
6. Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression. In our Governments, the real power lies in the majority of the Community.
And the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from the acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the constituents
7. Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.
8. If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
9. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives.
10. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
Quotes about the Constitution
James Madison quotes on constitution:
11. 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.
12. The means of defense against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home.”
13. 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. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives and liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the State.
14. [The Constitution preserves] the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation (where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.
15. 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.
16. The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, selfappointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.
17. You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.
Founding Father’s Quotes on Religion
James Madison quotes on religion:
18. It may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the Civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on unessential points. The tendency to usurpation on one side or the other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them, will be best guarded agst. by an entire abstinence of the Govt. from interference in any way whatsoever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order, and protecting each sect agst. trespasses on its legal rights by others.
19. Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind, and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.
20. Every new & successful example therefore of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance. And I have no doubt that every new example, will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt. will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.
21. Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise…. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution.
22. Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind, and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.
23. Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks-no form of government can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea, if there be sufficient virtue and intelligence in the community, it will be exercised in the selection of these men. So that we do not depend on their virtue, or put confidence in our rulers, but in the people who are to choose them.
24. Cursed be all that learning that is contrary to the cross of Christ.
24. Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.
There are still more of James Madison quotes. Keep reading.
Separation of Church and State Quotes
Below are James Madison quotes about concerning the separation of church and the state:
25. 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 in blood for centuries.
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26. But besides the danger of a direct mixture of Religion & civil Government, there is an evil which ought to be guarded agst in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by ecclesiastical corporations.
27. I have received your letter of the 6th, with the eloquent discourse delivered at the consecration of the Jewish Synagogue. Having ever regarded the freedom of religious opinions and worship as equally belonging to every sect, and the secure enjoyment of it as the best human provision for bringing all either into the same way of thinking or into that mutual charity which is the only substitute, I observe with pleasure the view you give of the spirit in which your sect partake of the blessings offered by our Government and laws, church and state.
28. 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.
29. We are teaching the world the great truth that Governments do better without Kings & Nobles than with them. The merit will be doubled by the other lesson that Religion Flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government
We the People Quote
James Madison quotes about the people, government control and democracy:
30. The growing wealth aquired by them corporations never fails to be a source of abuses.
31. A pure Democracy, by which I mean a Society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the Government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of Government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party, or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is, that such Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives, as they have been violent in their deaths.
32. 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.
33. 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.
34. The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.
35. 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.
Bill of Rights Quotes
Here are some James Madison quotes on the bill of right:
36. As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.
37. There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. Constitution James Madison.
38. If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
39. 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.
40. The personal right to acquire property, which is a natural right, gives to property, when acquired, a right to protection, as a social right.
41. 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. Trust people.
42. Equal laws protecting equal rights…the best guarantee of loyalty and love of country.
Federalist Quotes
Some of James Madison quotes on Federalism:
43. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be 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.
44. The accumulation of all powers, Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.
45. 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.
46. The man who is possessed of wealth, who lolls on his sofa or rolls in his carriage, cannot judge the wants or feelings of the day-laborer. The government we mean to erect is intended to last for ages.
47. A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defense against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Liberty James.
48. Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression. In our Governments, the real power lies in the majority of the Community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from the acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the constituents.
49. [It is] a power, which more than any other, ought to produce universal alarm, because it is levelled against that right of freely examining public liberty war, and of free communication among the people thereon, which has ever been justly deemed, the only effectual guardian of every other right.
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Founding Father’s Tyranny Quotes
Here are James Madison quotes on tyranny:
50. The purpose of the Constitution is to restrict the majority’s ability to harm a minority.
51. There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations
52. The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.”
53. Crisis is the rallying cry of the tyrant.
54. 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.
55. Oppressors can tyrannize only when they achieve a standing army, an enslaved press, and a disarmed populace.
56. If our nation is ever taken over, it will be taken over from within.
Equal right Quotes
James Madison quotes about equal right and fairness. A popular government:
57. Equal laws protecting equal rights…the best guarantee of loyalty and love of country.
58. A shared passion or interest will almost always be felt by a majority of the population; communication and concentration will occur from the structure of governance itself; and there will be nothing to prevent the weaker party or a disagreeable individual from being sacrificed.
59. 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.a
60. The danger of silent accumulations & encroachments by Ecclesiastical Bodies has not sufficiently engaged attention in the U.S. Besides the danger of a direct mixture of Religion & civil Government, there is an evil which ought to be guarded against in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by ecclesiastical Corporations.
Paraphrase What Madison Means by a Republic
From the James Madison quotes, we will paraphrase what He meant by republic:
A shared passion or interest will almost always be felt by a majority of the population; communication and concentration will occur from the structure of governance itself; and there will be nothing to prevent the weaker party or a disagreeable individual from being sacrificed.
Madison proposed the usage of a republic, and the first iteration must be assessed. The Roman Republic was a republic, but it had a monopolized, nearly aristocratic, power structure at the top. Arm power.
This is the Madisonian republic, which is a form of government in which individuals elect representatives to make decisions on their behalf through three powerful branches: executive, judicial, and legislative.
From early in the Constitutional Convention, Madison held the position that the national government should be federal because if it were more extensive in relation to the states, that would increase the “probability of duration, happiness and good order”.
It was not initially clear how the new government would interact with the states, and Madison was in favor of a federal form, “a political system in which at least two territorial levels of government share sovereign constitutional authority over their respective division and joint share of law-making powers; differently put, neither the federal government nor the relevant federative entities may unilaterally alter one another’s powers without a process of constitutional amendment in which both levels of government participate.”
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CSN Team.
