Contact | Newsletter | Directions| Photos       

Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Shelter Rock
48 Shelter Rock Road, Manhasset, Long Island, NY 11030
Tel: 516-627-6560, Fax: 516-627-6596
e-mail:
uucsr@uucsr.org

Click to enter
 

 

  Unitarian Universalist  Congregation at Shelter Rock

   

James Madison on War, April 20, 1795


"Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.  War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes. And armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.  In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended.  Its influence in dealing out offices, honors and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds are added to those of subduing the force of the people.  The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war ... and in the degeneracy of manners and morals engendered by both.  No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."

James Madison, from "Political Observations," April 20, 1795 in Letters and Other  Writings of James Madison , Volume IV, page 491.

 

 
 

Unitarian, Universalist, Shelter Rock, Humanist, Liberal Religion, UU, Veatch, Manhasset, Long Island, UUCSR

30,700 hits before April 1, 2005