But what colour can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms, immediately follows; and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon. If the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so expounded as to give meaning to every part which will bear it; shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent and the clear and precise expressions, be denied any signification whatsoever? For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural or common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars. But the idea of an enumeration of particulars, which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity which as we are reduced to the dilemma of charging either on the authors of the objection, or on the authors of the Constitution, we must take the liberty of supposing, had not its origin with the latter.

James Madison, founding father and president, from Federalist #41

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined.  Those which remain in the state governments are numerous and indefinite.

James Madison, president and founding father, Federalist #45

In bestowing the eulogies due to the particular and internal checks of power, it ought not the less to be remembered that they are neither the sole nor the chief palladium of constitutional liberty.  The people who are authors of this blessing must also be its guardians.  Their eyes must be ever ready to mark, their voice to pronounce, and their arms to repel or repair, aggressions on the authority of their Constitutions.

Quote from James Madison, founding father

A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole...and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual.  Hence it is that such 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, founding father of the Constitution

James Madison, founding father of the Constitution

It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in it a finger of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution.

James Madison, Founding father of the Constitution

PROPERTY...In the former sense, a man's land, or merchandise, or money, is called his property.  In the latter sense, a man has property in his opinions and the free communication of them.  He has a property of peculiar value in his religious opinions, and in the profession and free use of his faculties, and free choice of the objects on which to employ them.  In a word, as man is said to have right to his property, he may be equally said to have property in his rights.  Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected.  No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.  Where there is an excess of liberty, the effect is the same.

James Madison, founding father and president

Government is instituted to protect property of every sort.

president and founding father, James Madison

Conscience is the most sacred of all property.

James Madison, president and founding father

The real wonder is that so many difficulties should have been surmounted, and surmounted with a unanimity almost as unprecedented as it must have been unexpected.  It is impossible for any man of candor to reflect on this circumstance without partaking of the astonishment.  It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to percieve in it a finger of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution.

James Madison, president and founding father (Federalist #37)

The great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachment of the others...Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.  The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional right of the place.  It may be a reflection on human nature that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government.  But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?  If men were angels, no government would be necessary.  If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.

James Madison, president and founding father (Federalist # 51)

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, president and founding father (Federalist # 51)

A common interest or passion is less apt to be felt and the requisite combinations less easy to be formed by a great than a smaller number.  The society becomes broken into a greater variety of interests, of pursuits, of passions, which check each other, whilst those who may feel a common sentiment have less opportunity of communication and concert.

James Madison, president and founding father

In the first place it is to be remembered that the general government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws. Its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any. The subordinate governments, which can extend their care to all those other subjects which can be separately provided for, will retain their due authority and activity.

James Madison, Federalist Number 14

That Religion or the duty we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; that all men are equally entitled to enjoy the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience, unpunished and unrestrained by the magistrate, Unless the preservation of equal liberty and the existence of the State are manifestly endangered, and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian Forebearance, love and charity towards each other.

James Madison, president and founding father

Should the measure triumph under the patronage of 9 States or even the whole thirteen, I shall never be convinced that it is expedient, because I cannot concvieve it to be just.  There is no maxim in my opinion which is more liable to be misapplied, and which therefore more needs elucidation than the current one that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong.

James Madison, president and founding father

Whilst we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess and to observe the Religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to those whose minds have not yet yeilded to the evidence which has convinced us.  If this freedom be abused, it is an offence against God, not against men: To God, therefore, not to man, must account of it be rendered.

James Madison, president and founding father

the powers granted by the proposed constitution, are the gift of the people, and may be resumed by them when perverted to their oppression, and every power not granted thereby, remains with the people, and at their will.

James Madison, father of the Constitution

In order to understand the true character of the Constitution of the United States, the error, not uncommon, must be avoided, of viewing it through the medium, either of a Consolidated Government, or of a Confederated Government, whilst it is niether the one nor the other; but a mixture of Both.  And having in no model, the similitudes and analogies applicable to other systems of Government, it must more than any other, be its own interpreter according to its text and the facts of the case.

James Madison, Father of the Constitution

Such a view of the Constitution would have the effect of giving to Congress a general power of legislation instead of the defined and limited one, hitherto understand to belong to them, the terms "common defense and general welfare" embracing every object and act within the purview of a legislative trust.  It would have the effect of subjecting both the Constitution and laws of the several States in all cases not specifically exempted to be superseded by laws of Congress...

James Madison, father of the Constitution

Having not yet succeeded in hitting on an opportunity, I send you a part of it in a newspaper, which broaches a new Constitutional doctrine of vast consequence, and demanding the serious attention of the public. I consider it myself as subverting the fundamental and characteristic principle of the Government; as contrary to the true and fair, as well as the received construction, and as bidding defiance to the sense in which the Constitution is known to have been proposed, advocated, and adopted. If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions. It is to be remarked that the phrase out of which this doctrine is elaborated is copied from the old Articles of Confederation, where it was always understood as nothing more than a general caption to the specified powers.

James Madison, from a letter written to Edmund Pendleton on January 21, 1792

It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the unjustice of the other part...Justice is the end of government.  It is the end of civil society.  It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit.  In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger; and as, in the latter state, even the stronger individuals are prompted, by the uncertainty of their condition, to submit to a government which may protect the weak as well as themselves; so, in the former state, will the more powerful factions or parties be gradually induced, by like motive, to wish for a government which will protect all parties, the weaker as well as the more powerful.

James Madison, Father of the Constitution (Federalist #51)

But ambitious encroachments of the federal government on the authority of the State governments would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only - They would be signals of general alarm - Every government would espouse the common cause - A correspondence would be opened - Plans of resistance would be concerted - One spirit would animate and conduct the whole - The same combinations, in short, would result from an apprehension of the federal, as was produced by the dread of a foreign, yoke; and unless the projected innovations should be voluntarily renounced, the same appeal to a trial of force would be made in the one case as was made in the other. But what degree of madness could ever drive the federal government to such an extremity? 

James Madison, father of the Constitution