James Madison Quotes About Giving

Quotes about: Giving

• The personal right to acquire property, which is a natural right, gives to property, when acquired, a right to protection, as a social right.

  James Madison

  Giving, Liberty, Protection

  James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

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

  James Madison

  Education, Wisdom, Freedom

  1822; cited in U.S. Senate, Alleged Assassination Plots (1975).

• What is to be the consequence, in case the Congress shall misconstrue this part [the necessary and proper clause] of the Constitution and exercise powers not warranted by its true meaning, I answer the same as if they should misconstrue or enlarge any other power vested in them . . . the success of the usurpation will depend on the executive and judiciary departments, which are to expound and give effect to the legislative acts; and in a last resort a remedy must be obtained from the people, who can by the elections of more faithful representatives, annul the acts of the usurpers.

  James Madison

  Exercise, People, Giving

• [T]he great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachment of the others.

  James Madison

  Mean, Giving, Separation

  The Federalist no. 51 (1788)

• You give me a credit to which I have no claim in calling me "the writer of the Constitution of the United States." This was not, like the fabled Goddess of Wisdom, the offspring of a single brain. It ought to be regarded as the work of many heads and many hands.

  James Madison

  Hands, Giving, Brain

  James Madison (1867). “1829-1836”, p.341

• Those who proposed the Constitution knew, and those who ratified the Constitution also knew that this is...a limited government tied down to specified powers....It was never supposed or suspected that the old Congress could give away the money of the states to encourage agriculture or for any other purpose they pleased.

  James Madison

  Government, Agriculture, Giving

• To refer the power in question to the clause "to provide for the common defense and general welfare" would be contrary to the established and consistent rules of interpretation, as rendering the special and careful enumeration of powers which follow the clause nugatory and improper. Such a view of the Constitution would have the effect of giving to Congress a general power of legislation instead of the defined and limited one hitherto understood to belong to them, the terms "common defense and general welfare" embracing every object and act within the purview of a legislative trust.

  James Madison

  Views, Giving, Special

  James Madison (1819). “The Writings of James Madison: 1808-1819”, p.387

• The best service that can be rendered to a Country, next to that of giving it liberty, is in diffusing the mental improvement equally essential to the preservation, and the enjoyment of the blessing.

  James Madison

  Education, Country, Blessing

  James Madison, David B. Mattern (1997). “James Madison's "Advice to My Country"”, p.42, University of Virginia Press

• Every answer he [President John Adams] gives to his addressers unmasks more and more his principles and views. His language to the young men at Philadelphia is the most abominable and degrading that could fall from the lips of the first magistrate of an independent people, and particularly from a Revolutionary patriot.

  James Madison

  Fall, Independent, Men

• As compacts, charters of government are superior in obligation to all others, because they give effect to all others. As truths, none can be more sacred, because they are bound, on the conscience by the religious sanctions of an oath. As metes and bounds of government, they transcend all other land-marks, because every public usurpation is an encroachment on the private right, not of one, but of all.

  James Madison

  Religious, Land, Government

  James Madison (1906). “The Writings of James Madison: 1790-1802”

• Because the bill vests in the said incorporated church an authority to provide for the support of the poor and the education of poor children of the same, an authority which, being altogether superfluous if the provision is to be the result of pious charity, would be a precedent for giving to religious societies as such a legal agency in carrying into effect a public and civil duty.

  James Madison

  Religious, Children, Agency

  James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

• I have received your letter of the 6th, with the eloquent discourse delivered at the consecration of the Jewish Synagogue. Having ever regarded the freedom of religious opinions and worship as equally belonging to every sect, and the secure enjoyment of it as the best human provision for bringing all either into the same way of thinking, or into that mutual charity which is the only substitute, I observe with pleasure the view you give of the spirit in which your sect partake of the blessings offered by our Government and laws.

  James Madison

  Religious, Thinking, Blessing

  James Madison (1867). “1816-1828”, p.97

• Conscience is the most sacred of all property; other property depending in part on positive law, the exercise of that being a natural and unalienable right. To guard a man's house as his castle, to pay public and enforce private debts with the most exact faith, can give no title to invade a man's conscience, which is more sacred than his castle, or to withhold from it that debt of protection for which the public faith is pledged by the very nature and original conditions of the social pact.

  James Madison

  Exercise, Men, Law

  James Madison (1865). “Letters and other writings of James Madison”, p.479

• there ought always to be a constitutional method of giving efficacy to constitutional provisions. What for instance would avail restrictions on the authority of the state legislatures, without some constitutional mode of enforcing the observance of them? . . . This power must either be a direct negative on the state laws, or an authority in the federal courts, to over-rule such as might be in manifest contravention of the articles of union.

  James Madison

  Law, Giving, Negative

  Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison (2010). “The Federalist: A Commentary on the Constitution of the United States”, p.508, Modern Library

• Nothing could be more irrational than to give the people power, and to withhold from them information without which power is abused.

  James Madison

  People, Giving, Information

• I have sometimes thought there could be no stronger testimony in favor of Religion or against temporal Enjoyments even the most rational and manly than for men who occupy the most honorable and gainful departments and are rising in reputation and wealth, publicly to declare their unsatisfactoriness by becoming fervent Advocates in the cause of Christ, & I wish you may give in your Evidence in this way. Such instances have seldom occurred, therefore they would be more striking and would be instead of a "Cloud of Witnesses.

  James Madison

  Men, Clouds, Giving

  James Madison (1962). “The Papers of James Madison”

• [I]n the next place, to show that unless these departments be so far connected and blended as to give to each a constitutional control over the others, the degree of separation which the maxim requires, as essential to a free government, can never in practice be duly maintained.

  James Madison

  Government, Practice, Giving

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1852). “The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in 1788”, p.228

• 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?

  James Madison

  Men, Rights, Two

  James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

• It is certain that every class is interested in [educational] establishments which give to the human mind its highest improvements, and to every Country its truest and most durable celebrity.

  James Madison

  Education, Country, Class

  James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

• In all great changes of established governments, forms ought to give way to substance

  James Madison

  Government, Giving, Substance

  James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay (2016). “The Federalist Papers: The Making of the US Constitution”, p.84, Arcturus Publishing

• A distinction of property results from that very protection which a free Government gives to unequal faculties of acquiring it.

  James Madison

  Government, Giving, Protection

  James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

• The express authority of the people alone could give validity to the Constitution.

  James Madison

  People, Giving, Constitution

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1842). “The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788”, p.205

• As the people of the United States enjoy the great merit of having established a system of Government on the basis of human rights, and of giving it a form without example, which, as they believe, unites the greatest national strength with the best security for public order and individual liberty, they owe to themselves, to their posterity and to the world, a preservation of the system in its purity, its symmetry, and its authenticity.

  James Madison

  Believe, Rights, Government

  James Madison (1867). “1829-1836”, p.138

• The appointment of senators by the state legislatures . . . is recommended by the double advantage of favoring a select appointment, and of giving to the state governments such an agency in the formation of the federal government, as must secure the authority of the former.

  James Madison

  Government, Agency, Giving

  James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

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