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Quotes on Rights
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[T]hose safe, if not necessary, and those
politic, if not obligatory, amendments…
Letter to John G. Jackson, Dec. 27,
1821 (Madison
1865, III, pages 243-247)
Protection against Majority
The prescriptions in favor of liberty, ought to be levelled
against that quarter where the greatest danger lies, namely,
that which possesses the highest prerogative of power: But
this [is] not found in either the executive or legislative
departments of government, but in the body of the people,
operating by the majority against the minority.
It may be thought all paper barriers against the power of
the community are too weak to be worthy of attention…yet,
as they have a tendency to impress some degree of respect
for them, to establish the public opinion in their favor,
and rouse the attention of the whole community, it may be
one mean to control the majority from those acts to which
they might be otherwise inclined.
Proposing
Bill of Rights to House, June 8, 1789
Freedom of Speech and Press
[T]he right of freely examining public characters and measures,
and of free communication among the people thereon…has ever
been justly deemed the only effectual guardian of every other
right.
Virginia
Resolutions, 1798
[T]he right of electing the members of the government constitutes
more particularly the essence of a free and responsible government.
The value and efficacy of this right depends on the knowledge
of the comparative merits and demerits of the candidates for
public trust, and on the equal freedom, consequently, of examining
and discussing these merits and demerits of the candidates
respectively.
Madison's Report on the Virginia
Resolutions (in the American
Memory Collection of the Library of Congress)
[T]o the press alone; checkered as it is
with abuses, the world is indebted for all the triumphs which
have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.
Madison's Report on the Virginia Resolutions
(in the American
Memory Collection of the Library of Congress)
Separation of Church and State
[I]t is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our
liberties.
Memorial
and Remonstrance, 1785
[W]e hold it for a fundamental and undeniable truth, "that
religion or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner
of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction,
not by force or violence."
Memorial
and Remonstrance, 1785
Who does not see that the same authority which can establish
Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish
with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion
of all other Sects?
Memorial
and Remonstrance, 1785
I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every
past one has done, in shewing that religion and Government
will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed
together.
Letter to Edward Livingston, July
10, 1822 (Madison,
1865, III, page 265)
During almost fifteen centuries has the legal
establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have 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. Enquire of the Teachers
of Christianity for the ages in which it appeared in its greatest
lustre; those of every sect, point to the ages prior to its
incorporation with Civil policy.
Memorial
and Remonstrance, 1785
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.
Letter to M. M. Noah, May 15, 1818
(Madison,
1865, III, page 97)
Among the features peculiar to the political system of the
United States, is the perfect equality of rights which it
secures to every religious sect…Equal laws, protecting
equal rights, are found, as they ought to be presumed, the
best guarantee of loyalty and love of country; as well as
best calculated to cherish that mutual respect and good will
among citizens of every religious denomination which are necessary
to social harmony, and most favorable to the advancement of
truth.
Letter to Dr. De La Motta, August
1820 (Madison,
1865, III, pages 178-179)
NOT Madison on Separation of Church and State
According to Robert
S. Alley, the following quote has been falsely attributed
to Madison:
We have staked the entire future of the American
civilization not upon the power of government, but upon the
capacity of the individual to govern himself, to control himself
and sustain himself according to the Ten Commandments of God.
[M]en cannot be justly bound by laws, in
making which they have no share.
Letter to Joseph C. Cabell, January
5, 1829 (Madison,
1865, IV, page 2)
[T]he advantage of being armed, which the
Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation,
the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people
are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed,
forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable
than any which a simple government of any form can admit of.
Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms
of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources
will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with
arms.
Federalist
No. 46
It has been objected also against a bill
of rights, that, by enumerating particular exceptions to the
grant of power, it would disparage those rights which were not
placed in that enumeration, and it might follow by implication,
that those rights which were not singled out, were intended
to be assigned into the hands of the general government, and
were consequently insecure. This is one of the most plausible
arguments I have ever heard urged against the admission of a
bill of rights into this system; but, I conceive, that may be
guarded against. I have attempted it, as gentlemen may see by
turning to the last clause of the 4th resolution.
Proposing
Bill of Rights to House, June 8, 1789
Limitations on the State Governments
I wish also, in revising the constitution,
we may throw into that section, which interdicts the abuse of
certain powers in the state legislatures, some other provisions
of equal if not greater importance than those already made.
The words, "No state shall pass any bill of attainder,
ex post facto law, &c." were wise and proper restrictions
in the constitution. I think there is more danger of those powers
being abused by the state governments than by the government
of the United States. The same may be said of other powers which
they possess, if not controuled by the general principle, that
laws are unconstitutional which infringe the rights of the community.
I should therefore wish to extend this interdiction, and add,
as I have stated in the 5th resolution, that no state shall
violate the equal right of conscience, freedom of the press,
or trial by jury in criminal cases; because it is proper that
every government should be disarmed of powers which trench upon
those particular rights. I know in some of the state constitutions
the power of the government is controuled by such a declaration,
but others are not. I cannot see any reason against obtaining
even a double security on those points; and nothing can give
a more sincere proof of the attachment of those who opposed
this constitution to these great and important rights, than
to see them join in obtaining the security I have now proposed;
because it must be admitted, on all hands, that the state governments
are as liable to attack these invaluable privileges as the general
government is, and therefore ought to be as cautiously guarded
against.
Proposing
Bill of Rights to House, June 8, 1789
In a just and free government…the rights
both of property and of persons ought to be effectually guarded.
Will the former be so in the case of a universal and equal suffrage?
Will the latter be so in the case of a suffrage confined to
the holders of property?
Notes on Suffrage, written at different
periods after his retirement from public life (Madison,
1865, IV, page 22)
This term [property] in its particular application means,
"That dominion which one man claims and exercises over
the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other
individual."
In its larger and juster meaning, it embraces everything to
which a man may attach a value and have a right, and which
leaves to everyone else the like advantage.
In the former sense, a man's land, or merchandise, or money,
is called his property.
In the latter sense, a man has a property in his opinions
and the free communication of them.
He has a property of particular value in his religious opinions,
and in the profession and practice dictated by them.
He has a property very dear to him in the safety and liberty
of his person.
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.
"Property," March 27, 1792
(Madison,
1865, IV, page 478)
Extreme cases of oppression justify… a resort
to the original right of resistance, a right belonging to every
community, under every form of Government…
Letter to N. P. Trist, December, 1831
(Madison,
1865, IV, page 206)
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