Quotes by James Madison

“The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.”

“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy”

“In no instance have . . . the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people.”

“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.”

“There is no maxim, in my opinion, which is more liable to be misapplied, and which, therefore, more needs elucidation, than the current one, that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong”

“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 with blood for centuries.”

“In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority”

“Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe 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 usurpation”

“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”

“Philosophy is common sense with big words.”

“Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment withoutwhich it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly toabolish liberty, which is essential to political life, becauseit nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilationof air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts tofire its destructive agency.”

“And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together”

“Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government”

“Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate.”

“If the freedom of religion, guaranteed to us by law in theory, can ever rise in practice under the overbearing inquisition of public opinion, then and only then will truth, prevail over fanaticism”

“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.”

“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”

“A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country.”

“Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government.”

“The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other”