James Madison (1751–1836,) in full James Madison, Jr., was a Democratic-Republican Party political leader who served as the fourth president of the U.S. (1809–17.) As one of America’s Founding Fathers, he was one of the most active delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and played a leading part in drawing up the U.S. Constitution.
Born in Port Conway, Virginia, Madison graduated from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton) and quickly became involved in revolutionary politics. In 1776, he was a member of the Virginian Convention, and he served in the Continental Congress (1780–83, 1787) and the Virginia legislature (1784–86.)
At the Constitutional Convention (1787,) Madison influenced the planning and ratification of the U.S. Constitution and collaborated with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay to publish the Federalist papers (1787–88.) His ability to engineer compromises won him the title ‘master-builder of the constitution.’
As a member of the new House of Representatives from Virginia (1789–97,) he sponsored the Constitution’s first ten amendments, commonly called the Bill of Rights. He was a leader of the Jeffersonian Republicans, joining Thomas Jefferson in opposing the Alien and Sedition Acts and drawing up the Virginia Resolves.
When Jefferson was elected president in 1800, Madison was made Secretary of State, and, in 1809, he succeeded Jefferson as president. His administration was dominated by concerns about the European wars of the period and the damage done to American commerce. By the War of 1812, an unpopular conflict with Great Britain in which the USA gained none of its objectives. In 1817, at the close of his second term, Madison retired to Virginia.
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Is it not the glory of the people of America, that, whilst they have paid a decent regard to the opinions of former times and other nations, they have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to overrule the suggestions of their own good sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and the lessons of their own experience? To this manly spirit, posterity will be indebted for the possession, and the world for the example, of the numerous innovations displayed on the American theatre, in favor of private rights and public happiness.
—James Madison
Those who are to conduct a war cannot in the nature of things, be proper or safe judges, whether a war ought to be commenced, continued, or concluded.
—James Madison
Topics: War
Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect
—James Madison
Topics: Religion
Of all the evils to public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes. And armies, and debts, and taxes, are the known instruments for bringing the many under the dominion of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds are added to those of subduing the force of the people! No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
—James Madison
Topics: War
The free system of government we have established is so congenial with reason, with common sense, and with a universal feeling, that it must produce approbation and a desire of imitation, as avenues may be found for truth to the knowledge of nations.
—James Madison
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; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow.
—James Madison
Topics: Government
The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.
—James Madison
Topics: Defense
As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights. 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
—James Madison
Topics: Property, Government
If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the general welfare, the government is no longer a limited one possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one subject to particular exceptions.
—James Madison
Topics: Government
The powers of the federal government are enumerated; it can only operate in certain cases; it has legislative powers on defined and limited objects, beyond which it cannot extend its jurisdiction
—James Madison
Topics: Government
It is sufficiently obvious, that persons and property are the two great subjects on which Governments are to act; and that the rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted. These rights cannot be separated
—James Madison
Topics: Government
War contains so much folly, as well as wickedness, that much is to be hoped from the progress of reason; and if any thing is to be hoped, every thing ought to be tried.
—James Madison
The nation which reposes on the pillow of political confidence, will sooner or later end its political existence in a deadly lethargy
—James Madison
Topics: Nation
We have seen the mere distinction of colour made in the most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man
—James Madison
Topics: Government
The proposed Constitution is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal constitution; but a composition of both.
—James Madison
A standing army is one of the greatest mischiefs that can possibly happen
—James Madison
Topics: Army
A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country.
—James Madison
Topics: Defense
With respect to the two words “general welfare,” I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators. If the words obtained so readily a place in the “Articles of Confederation,” and received so little notice in their admission into the present Constitution, and retained for so long a time a silent place in both, the fairest explanation is, that the words, in the alternative of meaning nothing or meaning everything, had the former meaning taken for granted
—James Madison
Topics: Welfare, Government
What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty & Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual & surest support?
—James Madison
All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree
—James Madison
Topics: Trust, Government
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 usurpations.
—James Madison
Topics: Freedom, Government
We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties.
—James Madison
Topics: Liberty
Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been, and ever will be pursued, until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit.
—James Madison
Topics: Justice
Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.
—James Madison
Topics: Liberty
Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government
—James Madison
Topics: Religion
The constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, & most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care, vested the question of war in the Legislature. But the Doctrines lately advanced strike at the root of all these provisions, and will deposit the peace of the Country in that Department which the Constitution distrusts as most ready without cause to renounce it. For if the opinion of the President not the facts & proofs themselves are to sway the judgment of Congress, in declaring war, and if the President in the recess of Congress create a foreign mission, appoint the minister, & negotiate a War Treaty, without the possibility of a check even from the Senate, until the measures present alternatives overruling the freedom of its judgment; if again a Treaty when made obliges the Legislature to declare war contrary to its judgment, and in pursuance of the same doctrine, a law declaring war, imposes a like moral obligation, to grant the requisite supplies until it be formally repealed with the consent of the President & Senate, it is evident that the people are cheated out of the best ingredients in their Government, the safeguards of peace which is the greatest of their blessings.
—James Madison
The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.
—James Madison
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.
—James Madison
Topics: Authority
The genius of Republican liberty, seems to demand on one side, not only that all power should be derived from the people; but, that those entrusted with it should be kept in dependence on the people, by a short duration of their appointments; and, that, even during this short period, the trust should be placed not in a few, but in a number of hands. Stability, on the contrary, requires, that the hands, in which power is lodged, should continue for a length of time, the same. A frequent change of men will result from a frequent return of electors, and a frequent change of measures, from a frequent change of men; whilst energy in Government requires not only a certain duration of power, but the execution of it by a single hand.
—James Madison
In order to judge of the form to be given to this institution the Senate, it will be proper to take a view of the ends to be served by it. These were, first, to protect the people against their rulers, secondly, to protect the people against the transient impressions into which they themselves might be led.
—James Madison
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