James Madison Quotes

Democratic forms of government are vulnerable to mass prejudice, the so-called tyranny of the majority.

All those who defend freedom are bound as their first duty to be the champions of minorities, and the danger of allowing the majority, which holds the power of the State, to interfere at its will is that the interests of the minority will be disregarded and crushed out under the omnipotent force of a popular vote

[In a democracy] a common passion or interest will, in almost every case , be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert results from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual.

If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure.

Electorally, the number of women who want to wear a burka is insignificant, yet it is important to defend such a minority against the tyranny of the majority.

Of course, the aim of a constitutional democracy is to safeguard the rights of the minority and avoid the tyranny of the majority. (p. 102)

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.

One great object of the Constitution was to restrain majorities from oppressing minorities or encroaching upon their just rights.

When you put a tiny and despised minority up for a popular vote, the minority usually loses.

Majority rule only works if you're also considering individual rights. Because you can't have five wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for supper.

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

'Democratic' in its original meaning refers to unlimited majority rule....a social system in which one's work, one's property, one's mind, and one's life are at the mercy of any gang that may muster the vote of a majority at any moment for any purpose

The notion that a person's constitutional rights may be subject to a majority vote is itself anathema.

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.

51 percent of the people should not always get 100% of the power; 51 percent of the people should certainly not get all the power if they use that power to exclude the 49%. In that case, we do not have majority rule. We have majority tyranny.

Sometimes great injustices may be inflicted on the minority when the majority is in the pursuit of a great and just cause.

The public must find a way avoid the damage caused by a majority who neither has the ability or the desire to legislate.

The Government of the absolute majority instead of the Government of the people is but the Government of the strongest interests; and when not efficiently checked, it is the most tyrannical and oppressive that can be devised

The rights to life, liberty and property were not meant to be subject to the vagaries of majority rule.

In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority.

If the minority, and a small one too, is suffered to dictate to the majority, after measures have undergone the most solemn discussions by the representatives of the people, and their will through this medium is enacted into a law, there can be no security for life, liberty, or property; nor, if the laws are not to govern, can any man know how to conduct himself in safety.

You have fewer rights because you are a minority. Absolutely, that’s how democracy works.

I think 'one man, one vote,' just unrestricted democracy, would not be wise. There needs to be some kind of protection for the minority which the white people represent now, a minority, and they need and have a right to demand a protection of their rights.

If I am part of a group of 100 people, do 99 people have the right to sentence me to death, just because they are majority?

The invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from 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.