Fourth Of July Quotes: Jimmy Madison

We continue our Fourth of July quotations with Mr. Madison our fourth POTUS and key contributor to the actual design of our constitution.

"Each generation should be made to bear the burden of its own wars, instead of carrying them on, at the expense of other generations."

"And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together."

"America was indebted to immigration for her settlement and prosperity. That part of America which had encouraged them most had advanced most rapidly in population, agriculture and the arts."

"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. " [TW: the lobbyists have shredded this hope]

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

"Ambition must be made to counteract ambition."

"All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree"

"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy"

"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."

TW: I could go on all day with Madison quotes, he was a genius on par with Jefferson. You can thank those two for most of the good bits of our governance.