James Madison Quotes

The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted.

It is to secure our rights that we resort to government at all.

We assert that in those areas where the government is either unable or unwilling to protect the lives and property of our people, that our peopie are within our rights to protect themselves by whatever means necessary.

Nothing in our Constitution suggests that government is a grantor of rights. Instead, government is a protector of rights.

The only proper, moral purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence - to protect his right to his own life, to his own liberty, to his own property and to the pursuit of his own happiness. Without property rights, no other rights are possible.

Protecting the rights of even the least individual among us is basically the only excuse the government has for even existing.

Personal liberty and personal rights are placed in the keeping of the nation, that the right to life, liberty, and property shall be guarantied to the citizen in reality ... We must make American citizenship the shield that protects every citizen, on every foot of our soil.

People have increasingly come to regard the government as a source of rights rather than as a defender of pre-existing individual rights.

The function of Government must be to favor no small group at the expense of its duty to protect the rights of personal freedom and of private property of all its citizens.

An individual citizen cannot protect himself from the powers of large corporations or external governments. It is the responsibility of the government to protect its citizens.

In a free society, individuals have the right to do right or wrong, as long as they don't threaten or infringe upon the rights or property of others.

The country was founded on the principle that primary role of government is to protect property from the majority, and so it remains.

The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence.

The persons and property of our citizens are entitled to the protection of our government in all places where they may lawfully go.

So long as we govern our nation by the letter and spirit of the Bill of Rights, we can be sure that our nation will grow in strength and wisdom and freedom.

That the sole object and only legitimate end of government is to protect the citizen in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property, and when the government assumes other functions it is usurpation and oppression.

It is admitted that all men have an equal right to the enjoyment of their life, property and personal security; and it is the duty as it is the object, of government to protect every man in this enjoyment.

In a free government the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights.

The Gen. Commanding, takes this means of informing the people that he has not come among them to disturb them in the enjoyment of their rights, either of person or property.

Government should work to insure the rights of the individual, not plot to take them away.

Left to me, the whole purpose of government is for the security of the citizens, like the security of lives and property.

The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to an uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government.

Ultimately property rights and personal rights are the same thing.

Americans chose a limited government that exists to protect our rights, not to grant them.

One of the functions of government is to act as a safeguard not just of property but of our liberties.