Time for a JAMES MADISON LESSON

Too much news today, let's learn something.

James Madison, Fourth President 1809-1817, often referred to as the 'Father of the Constitution', Madison protested that the document was not "the off-spring of a single brain," but "the work of many heads and many hands."

"The internal effects of a mutable policy poisons the blessings of liberty itself. "
"The loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or imagined, from abroad." "The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home. "

"The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. "

"We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties."

"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. "

"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. "

"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. "

"Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. "