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.
-- James Madison, The Federalist Papers
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.
-- James Madison, The Federalist Papers
It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our
liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of
citizens and one of the noblest characteristics of the late
Revolution. The freemen of America did not wait till usurped power had
strengthened itself by exercise and entangled the question in
precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they
avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this
lesson too much ... to forget it -- James Madison.
I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the
Constitution which grant[s] a right to Congress of expending, on
objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.
-- James Madison, 1794
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repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such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. Law is defined to be a rule of
action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less
fixed? -- James Madison, Federalist Papers 62
“During almost fifteen centuries the legal establishment of Christianity has
been upon trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride
and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity,; in both,
superstition, bigotry, and persecution.”
- James Madison