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| James Madison
A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country. As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights. Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government. If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: and a people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. The proposed Constitution is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal constitution; but a composition of both. There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpation. |
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