[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 120 (Wednesday, July 25, 2007)]
[House]
[Page H8404]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               JAMES MADISON'S ``POLITICAL OBSERVATIONS''

  (Mr. HALL of New York asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. HALL of New York. Mr. Speaker, I would like to quote from James 
Madison, chief author of the Constitution, from remarks he wrote on 
April 20, 1795, which sound as though they could have been written 
today.
  ``Of all the enemies of true liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be 
dreaded because it compromises 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. This 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 manner and of morals engendered in both. No nation can 
preserve its freedom in the midst of continual war. War is, in fact, 
the true nurse of executive aggrandizement.''

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