Quotes by James Madison

Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.

The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived.

All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.

I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.

Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.

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

It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.

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.

The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted.

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men you must first enable the government to control the governed and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

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

A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce, or a tragedy, or perhaps both.

Whenever a youth is ascertained to possess talents meriting an education which his parents cannot afford, he should be carried forward at the public expense.

Every nation whose affairs betray a want of wisdom and stability may calculate on every loss which can be sustained from the more systematic policy of its wiser neighbors.

The operations of the federal government will be most extensive and important in times of war and danger; those of the state governments, in times of peace and security.

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.

The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.

A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.

To the press alone, chequered as it is with abuses, the world is indebted for all the triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.