"Americans need never fear their government
because of the advantage of being armed,
which the Americans possess over the people
of almost every other nation."
-- James Madison
(1751-1836), Father of the Constitution for the USA, 4th US President
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/James.Madison.Quote.929E

"The essence of Government is power;
and power, lodged as it must be in human hands,
will ever be liable to abuse."
-- James Madison
(1751-1836), Father of the Constitution for the USA, 4th US President
Source: Speech, Virginia State Convention, 2 December 1829
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/James.Madison.Quote.A7BE

"The strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast;
ambition, avarice, vanity, the honorable or venal love of fame,
are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace."
-- James Madison
(1751-1836), Father of the Constitution for the USA, 4th US President
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/James.Madison.Quote.B740

"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed;
a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security
of a free country; but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms
shall be compelled to render military service in person."
-- James Madison
(1751-1836), Father of the Constitution for the USA, 4th US President
Source: I Annals of Congress 434, June 8, 1789
http://liberty-tree.ca/qb/James.Madison.Quote.FFB3

"The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak,
or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press,
as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable."
-- James Madison (1751-1836), Father of the Constitution for the USA, 4th US President
Source: First draft of what became the First Amendment, 8 June 1789
http://liberty-tree.ca/qb/James.Madison.Quote.A7BF

"Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention;
have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property;
and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their 
death." -- James Madison
(1751-1836), Father of the Constitution for the USA, 4th US President
http://liberty-tree.ca/qb/James.Madison.Quote.F335

"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution
which granted a right to Congress of expending, on the objects of benevolence,
the money of their constituents." -- James Madison
(1751-1836), Father of the Constitution for the USA, 4th US President
Source: 1792, in disapproval of Congress appropriating $15,000 to assist some French refugees
http://www.liberty-tree.ca/qb/James.Madison.Quote.24FE

"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare,
and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare,
they may take the care of religion into their own hands;
they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish
and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into 
their own hands the education of children, establishing in like 
manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of 
the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than 
post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state 
legislation down to the most minute object of police,
would be thrown under the power of Congress.... Were the power
of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for,
it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature
of the limited Government established by the people of America."
-- James Madison (1751-1836), Father of the Constitution for the USA, 
4th US President
http://www.liberty-tree.ca/qb/James.Madison.Quote.3254

"Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression.
In our Governments the real power lies in the majority of the community,
and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended,
not from acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents,
but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the
major number of the Constituents." -- James Madison (1751-1836), Father of the 
Constitution for the USA, 4th US President
Source: in a letter to Thomas Jefferson in 1788
http://liberty-tree.ca/qb/James.Madison.Quote.18DB

"In framing a government, which is to be administered by men over men,
the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government
to control the governed, and in the next place, oblige it to control
itself." -- James Madison (1751-1836), Father of the Constitution for the USA, 
4th US President
Source: The Federalist; Feb.8, 1788
http://liberty-tree.ca/qb/James.Madison.Quote.A253