James Madison Quotes

The Founding Fathers gladly sacrificed government that could provide speedy, effective, cohesive, and internally consistent policies. They opted for one that had a maximum number of veto points and checks and balances and protections against tyranny by particular officials or tyranny by selfish majorities.

Not that I distrust the King, but that I cannot give trust except in a parliamentary way.

it would be so dangerous for the Executive in a single Person to negative a Law that the People will not accept of it.

The Constitution reminds us that the government that produces free people is one of divided power.

The people can never err more than in supporting that by multiplying their representatives beyond a certain limit, they strengthen the barrier against the government of a few.

The wisdom and discretion of Congress ... are the restraints on which the people must often rely solely, in all representative governments

I consider biennial elections as a security that the sober, second thought of the people shall be law.

If it be asked what is to restrain the House of Representatives from making legal discriminations in favor of themselves and a particular class of the society? I answer, the genius of the whole system, the nature of just and constitutional laws, and above all the vigilant and manly spirit which actuates the people of America, a spirit which nourishes freedom, and in return is nourished by it. If this spirit shall ever be so far debased as to tolerate a law not obligatory on the Legislature as well as on the people, the people will be prepared to tolerate anything but liberty.

Having a vote once every four years is not the same thing as democracy.

America has never been a pure democracy and majoritarianism has always been as much feared as monarchism.

This Government, the offspring of your own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support.

A government, the constitution of which renders it unfit to be trusted with all the powers which a free people ought to delegate to any government, would be an unsafe and improper depositary of the NATIONAL INTERESTS.

Democratic institutions form a system of quarantine for tyrannical desires.

All democracies are based on the proposition that power is very dangerous and that it is extremely important not to let any one person or small group have too much power for too long a time

It is essential to democracy that the elected representatives of the people make the laws that govern this country - and not the judges.

In our constitutional system, states are free to make decisions and bear the political consequences, good or bad, of those choices.

I strongly believe that the Founding Fathers of our country got it right: power corrupts, and any time you have too much power concentrated in one place, it tends to get abused, so checks and balances are always needed.

The framers hated the tyranny of King George, but they were also afraid of the mob. That's why they put so many checks and balances into our system, to guard against the excesses of a government that might be inflamed by public passion or perverted by a dictator's whim.

In democracies, we aren't always governed by the people or the parties that we voted for. But when officials are elected, we must respect their authority, as long as they're exercising that authority within the bounds of whatever regulatory frameworks are in place to guide them.

Congress is where Americans are supposed to have our big, messy political fights. That's because the people who make the laws need to be hired and fired by the people. Don't like the laws? Fire the lawmakers.

If you believe in democracy, the overreach of leaders is a good reminder that vigorous public debate and time-consuming due process are not only more fair and more just, but that over the long term they usually produce better government, too.

We have the oldest written constitution still in force in the world, and it starts out with three words, 'We, the people.'

Obama might think of himself as one, but he is not a dictator. We are not a banana republic yet. This is not an authoritarian form of government. This is a constitutional republic, and the president doesn't allow or disallow. The president can't buy or purchase.

Democracy demands that judges confine themselves to a narrow sphere of influence - that is why the late Alexander Bickel called the judiciary the 'Least Dangerous Branch.' In a world governed by a proper conception of their role, judges don't play at being legislators - they leave that job to our elected representatives.

The beauty of our democracy is that the final authority is not the president of the United States, but instead the American public through their duly elected representatives in the United States Congress.