James Madison Quotes

Though written constitutions may be violated in moments of passion or delusion, yet they furnish a text to which those who are watchful may again rally and recall the people. They fix, too, for the people the principles of their political creed.

Virtue, patriotism, or love of country, never was and never will be, till mens’ natures are changed a fixed, permanent principle and support of government. But in an agricultural country, a general possession of land…may be rendered perpetual, and the inequalities introduced by commerce, are too fluctuating to endanger government. An equality of property, with a necessity of alienation, constantly operating to destroy combinations of powerful families, is the very soul of a republic.

The Constitution poses no threat to our current form of government.

Very many and very meritorious were the worthy patriots who assisted in bringing back our government to its republican tack. To preserve it in that, will require unremitting vigilance.

It is (our) duty . . . to pay especial attention to the principles of government which shall be inculcated therein (at the University), and to provide that none shall be inculcated which are incompatible with those on which the Constitutions of this State, and of the United States were genuinely based, in the common opinion; and for this purpose it may be necessary to point out specially where these principles are to be found legitimately developed.

So long as we govern our nation by the letter and spirit of the Bill of Rights, we can be sure that our nation will grow in strength and wisdom and freedom.

Constitutional democracy has created astonishing and apparently irreversible social progress. All we're interested in is talking about when government doesn't work.

No government can be maintained without the principle of fear as well as duty.

The best commentary on the principles of government which has ever been written.

Obviously I think politics is interesting and important and educational.

The rule of law should be respected so that the basic structure of our democracy is maintained and further strengthened.

Obviously I prefer freedom, but I know, and I think all history has told us, that freedom cannot flow from anarchy and disorder.

Fairness and justice will be the base of my government.

A very wise father once remarked, that in the government of his children, he forbid as few things as possible; a wise legislature would do the same. It is folly to make laws on subjects beyond human prerogative, knowing that in the very nature of things they must be set aside. To make laws that man cannot and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt. It is very important in a republic, that the people should respect the laws, for if we throw them to the winds, what becomes of civil government?

Bad as any government may be, it is seldom worse than anarchy.

The devotion of democracy to education is a familiar fact. . . . [A] government resting upon popular suffrage cannot be successful unless those who elect . . . their governors are educated.

Of all the objections which have been framed against the federal Constitution, this is perhaps the most extraordinary. Whilst the objection itself is levelled against a pretended oligarchy, the principle of it strikes at the very root of republican government.

A mercantile democracy may govern long and widely; a mercantile aristocracy cannot stand.

At first view it might seem not to square with the republican theory, to suppose either that a majority have not the right, or that a minority will have the force to subvert a government . . . . But theoretic reasoning in this, as in most other cases, must be qualified by the lessons of practice.

I think most of [people] are not very well educated themselves to understand the Winston Churchill line - democracy is the worst of all governments until you consider all the other ones.

The provisions we have made [for our government] are such as please ourselves; they answer the substantial purposes of government and of justice, and other purposes than these should not be answered.

The establishment of the chaplainship to Congress is a palpable violation of ... constitutional principles.

A republican government in a hundred points is weaker than an autocratic government; but in this one point it is the strongest that ever existed — it has educated a race of men that are men.

Now, and ever, I shall do all in my power for peace, consistently with the maintenance of government.

No peace can last, or ought to last, which does not recognize and accept the principle that governments derive all their just powers from the consent of the governed, and that no right anywhere exists to hand peoples from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were property.