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James Madison Quotes

4th U.S. President

James Madison, the 4th President of the United States, was born on March 16, 1751, and died on June 28, 1836. He was a key figure in drafting the U.S. Constitution and had a profound impact on the political system of the United States.

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Famous James Madison Quotes

“Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks-no form of government can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea, if there be sufficient virtue and intelligence in the community, it will be exercised in the selection of these men. So that we do not depend on their virtue, or put confidence in our rulers, but in the people who are to choose them.”

Source: James Madison's

“No man will subject himself to the ridicule of pretending that any natural connection subsists between the sun or the seasons, and the period within which human virtue can bear the temptations of power. Happily for mankind, liberty is not, in this respect, confined to any single point of time, but lies within extremes, which afford sufficient latitude for all the variations which may be required by the various situations and circumstances of civil society.”

Source: The Federalist: With Letters of Brutus

“The people can never willfully betray their own interests: But they may possibly be betrayed by the representatives of the people; and the danger will be evidently greater where the whole legislative trust is lodged in the hands of one body of men, than where the concurrence of separate and dissimilar bodies is required in every public act.”

People Men May Whole Body Hands Interest Greater Danger Congress Betray Representatives Betrayed Legislature Concurrence

Book:The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788

Source: The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788

“Whatever may be the judgement pronounced on the competency of the architects of the Constitution, or whatever may be the destiny of the edifice prepared by them, I feel it a duty to express my profound and solemn conviction . . . that there never was an assembly of men, charged with a great and arduous trust, who were more pure in their motives, or more exclusively or anxiously devoted to the object committed to them.”

Source: Journal of the Federal Convention

“In the latter sense, a man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them. He has a property of peculiar value in his religious opinions, and in the profession and practice dictated by them. He has an equal property in the free use of his faculties and free choice of the objects on which to employ them. In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.”

Men May Said Use Values Choices Religious Opinion Practice Rights Objects Communication Equal Property Profession Latter Faculty Peculiar Property Rights Free Choice

Author:James Madison

“[Property] embraces everything to which a man may attach a value and have a right.”

Men May Values Embrace Property

Book:1829-1836

Source: 1829-1836

“When men exercise their reason coolly and freely, on a variety of distinct questions, they inevitably fall into different opinions, on some of them. When they are governed by a common passion, their opinions if they are so to be called, will be the same.”

Ifs Men Different Reason Fall Passion Common Opinion Exercise Variety Public Opinion Different Opinions

Book:The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788

Source: The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788

“Place three individuals in a situation wherein the interest of each depends on the voice of the others, and give to two of them an interest opposed to the rights of the third. Will the latter be secure? The prudence of every man would shun the danger. The rules & forms of justice suppose & guard against it. Will two thousand in a like situation be less likely to encroach on the rights of one thousand?”

Men Giving Two Form Three Individual Voice Interest Justice Situation Rights Danger Depends Thousand Thirds Every Man Secure Latter Prudence

Book:Selected Writings of James Madison

Source: Selected Writings of James Madison

“Before any man can be considered as a member of Civil Society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governour of the Universe: And if a member of Civil Society, do it with a saving of his allegiance to the Universal Sovereign. We maintain therefore that in matters of Religion, no man's right is abridged by the institution of Civil Society and that Religion is wholly exempt from its cognizance.”

Ifs Men Matter Universe Subjects Members Universal Institutions Saving Sovereign Allegiance Civil Society

Book:A memorial and remonstrance, on the religious rights of man; written in 1784-5, at the request of the religious society of Baptists in Virginia. ...

Source: A memorial and remonstrance, on the religious rights of man; written in 1784-5, at the request of the religious society of Baptists in Virginia. ...

“The real wonder is that so many difficulties should have been surmounted [in the federal convention], and surmounted with a unanimity almost as unprecedented as it must have been unexpected. It is impossible for any man of candor to reflect on this circumstance without partaking of the astonishment. It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in it a finger of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution.”