James Madison

The loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or imagined, from abroad.

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

A sincere and steadfast co-operation in promoting such a reconstruction of our political system as would provide for the permanent liberty and happiness of the United States.

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

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

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

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

To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.

What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.

The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to an uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government.

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.

The essence of Government is power and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.

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.

I have no doubt but that the misery of the lower classes will be found to abate whenever the Government assumes a freer aspect and the laws favor a subdivision of Property.

War should only be declared by the authority of the people, whose toils and treasures are to support its burdens, instead of the government which is to reap its fruits.

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.

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.

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.

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

Knowledge will forever govern ignorance and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.