James Madison Quotes

A pure democracy can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will be felt by a majority, and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party

A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person.

Our form of government is called a democracy because instead of being controlled by a monopoly, it is controlled by the whole people.

Shall the majority govern or be governed? Shall the nation rule or be ruled? Shall the general will prevail, or the will of a faction? Shall there be government or no government?

In America, we have a two-party system, and the American Constitution is a piece of brilliance, but they did not know when they set it up we would just have a two-party system. It just so happens that our electorate pushed towards the two-party system because it's a very good way to govern.

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.

What is understood by republican government in the United States is the slow and quiet action of society upon itself.

Say, oh well, the Republicans don't like this therefor I shouldn't do it. What kind of a government would that be. We're not a parliamentary system.

It's precisely because America is not a democracy that we have survived! It's precisely because majority rule does have checks and balances on it. It's precisely because this is a representative republic that we have survived.

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.

If government is in the hands of the few, they will tyrannize the many; if in the hands of the many, they will tyrannize over the few. It ought to be in the hands of both, and they should be separated.... They will need a mutual check. This check is a monarch.

No president … has ever quarreled with Congress as a whole, or with either chamber, without being backed by the people. The great body of voters hate what they regard as an unequal fight, and may always be trusted to side with the one man as against the many; with the public servant whom they have jointly elected, as against any number of public servants chosen to represent fractional parts of the Union.

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

A popular assembly without parties--500 isolated individuals--cannot stand five years against a Minister with an organized Government without becoming a servile Senate.

You cannot choose between party government and Parliamentary government. I say, you can have no Parliamentary government if you have no party government; and, therefore, when Gentlemen denounce party government, they strike at that scheme of government which, in my opinion, has made this country great, and which I hope will keep it great.

In republics the executive must be strongest because everything conspires against it, while in monarchies the legislature must be strongest, because everything conspires in favour of the monarch

If the Congress fails then American democracy is dysfunctional.

The speakership isn't a dictatorship.

In a Madisonian system, it is often more important how you do something than what you do.

It is important not to confuse the national spirit with that of the faction which presently dominates…

This public rally is aimed at informing the whole world of the will of the people... Our purpose is to show that the entire people entertain the keenest desire for a multiparty democratic system of government.

Our democratic belief that anyone can be a political leader paradoxically feeds into the anti-democratic belief that we should look to one person to quickly and easily save us. No one, alone, can fix it, and in our system of government, this authoritarian approach is a prescription for catastrophe.

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.

The British Government very naturally would like to see in India the form of democratic constitutions it knows best and thinks best, under which the Government of the country is entrusted to one or other political party in accordance with the turn of elections.

When there is a parliamentarian crisis, the only solution in a democracy is early elections.