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Quotes on Various
Issues
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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. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance;
and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves
with the power which knowledge gives.
Letter to W. T. Barry, August 4,
1822 (Madison,
1865, III, page 276
[T]he essential connexion between a diffusion of knowledge
and the success of Republican institutions…
Letter to Samuel S. Lewis, President,
etc., Feby 16, 1829 (Madison,
1865, IV, page 31)
Learned institutions ought to be favorite objects with every
free people. They throw that light over the public mind which
is the best security against crafty and dangerous encroachments
on the public liberty.
Letter to W. T. Barry, August 4,
1822 (Madison,
1865, III, page 277)
Liberty and Learning; both best supported when leaning each
on the other.
Letter to W. T. Barry, August 4,
1822 (Madison,
1865, III, page 279) and Letter to Elliott Cressen.—for
his album. April 23, 1829 (Madison,
1865, IV, page 38)
Whilst it is universally admitted that a well-instructed
people alone can be permanently a free people, and whilst
it is evident that the means of diffusing and improving useful
knowledge form so small a proportion of the expenditures for
national purposes, I can not presume it to be unseasonable
to invite your attention to the advantages of superadding
to the means of education provided by the several States a
seminary of learning instituted by the National Legislature
within the limits of their exclusive jurisdiction, the expense
of which might be defrayed or reimbursed out of the vacant
grounds which have accrued to the nation within those limits.
Such an institution, though local in its legal character,
would be universal in its beneficial effects. By enlightening
the opinions, by expanding the patriotism, and by assimilating
the principles, the sentiments, and the manners of those who
might resort to this temple of science, to be redistributed
in due time through every part of the community, sources of
jealousy and prejudice would be diminished, the features of
national character would be multiplied, and greater extent
given to social harmony. But, above all, a well-constituted
seminary in the center of the nation is recommended by the
consideration that the additional instruction emanating from
it would contribute not less to strengthen the foundations
than to adorn the structure of our free and happy system of
government.
State
of the Union, 1810
Geography is a preliminary, in all cases, to a pleasing and
instructive course of historical readings.
Letter to B. Chapman, January 25,
1821 (Madison,
1865, III, pages 204-205)
Much may be expected from the progress and diffusion of political
science in dissipating errors, opposed to the sound principles
which harmonize different interests…
Letter to ____ ____, March, 1836
(Madison,
IV, page 430)
The capacity of the female mind for studies of the highest
order cannot be doubted, having been sufficiently illustrated
by its works of genius, of erudition, and of science.
Letter to Albert Picket and Others,
September, 1821 (Madison,
1865, III, page 232)
No studies seem so well calculated to give a proper expansion
to the mind as Geography and History; and when not absorbing
an undue portion of time, are as beneficial and becoming to
one sex as to the other.
Letter to B. Chapman, January 25,
1821 (Madison,
1865, III, pages 204-205)
No feature in the aspect of our country is more gratifying
than the increase and variety of Institutions for educating
the several ages and classes of the rising generation, and
the meritorious patriotism, which improving on the most improved
forms, extends the benefits to the sex heretofore sharing
too little of it.
Letter to G.C. Verplank Feby 20,
1828 (Madison,
1865, III, page 617)
Another of my wishes is to depend as little as possible on
the labour of slaves.
Letter to R. H. Lee, July 17, 1785
(Madison,
1865, I, page 161)
[W]e must deny the fact, that slaves are
considered merely as property, and in no respect whatever as
persons. The true state of the case is, that they partake of
both these qualities: being considered by our laws, in some
respects, as persons, and in other respects as property. In
being compelled to labor, not for himself, but for a master;
in being vendible by one master to another master; and in being
subject at all times to be restrained in his liberty and chastised
in his body, by the capricious will of another, the slave may
appear to be degraded from the human rank, and classed with
those irrational animals which fall under the legal denomination
of property. In being protected, on the other hand, in his life
and in his limbs, against the violence of all others, even the
master of his labor and his liberty; and in being punishable
himself for all violence committed against others, the slave
is no less evidently regarded by the law as a member of the
society, not as a part of the irrational creation; as a moral
person, not as a mere article of property.
Federalist
No. 54
American citizens are instrumental in carrying on a traffic
in enslaved Africans, equally in violation of the laws of
humanity and in defiance of those of their own country. The
same just and benevolent motives which produced interdiction
in force against this criminal conduct will doubtless be felt
by Congress in devising further means of suppressing the evil.
State
of the Union, 1810
It is due to justice; due to humanity; due to truth; due
to the sympathies of our nature; in fine, to our character
as a people, both abroad and at home, that they should be
considered, as much as possible, in the light of human beings,
and not as mere property. As such, they are acted on by our
laws, and have an interest in our laws. They may be considered
as making a part, though a degraded part, of the families
to which they belong.
Speech in the Virginia State Convention
of 1829-'30, on the Question of the Ratio of Representation
in the two Branches of the Legislature, December 2, 1829 (Madison,
1865, IV, page 53)
Outlets for the freed blacks are alone wanted for the erasure
of the blot from our Republican character.
Letter to General La Fayette, Febr
1, 1830 (Madison,
1865, IV, page 60)
[I]f slavery, as a national evil, is to be abolished, and
it be just that it be done at the national expense, the amount
of the expense is not a paramount consideration
Letter to Robert J. Evans, (Author
of the pieces published under the name of Benjamin Rush.),
June 15,1819 (Madison,
1865, III, pages 133-138)
In contemplating the pecuniary resources needed for the removal
of such a number to so great a distance [freed slaves to Africa],
my thoughts and hopes have long been turned to the rich fund
presented in the western lands of the nation…
Letter to R. R. Gurley, Decr 28,
1831 (Madison,
1865, IV, page 213)
[S]laves…remain such in spite of the declarations that all
men are born equally free.
Letter to ___ ___, June 28, 1831
(Madison,
1865, IV, page 188)
To provide employment for the poor, and
support for the indigent, is among the primary, and, at the
same time, not least difficult cares of the public authority.
Letter to Revd F.C. Schaeffer, Jany
8, 1820 (Madison,
1865, III, page 162)
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