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Democracy is the most vile form of government.

— James Madison Misattributed

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Source, in full

Not in Madison's writings. The phrase is commonly prefixed to a genuine passage from Federalist No. 10, where Madison refers only to "a pure democracy": "such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention..." The "vile" wording appears in no scanned book before 2000 (HathiTrust full-text search returns no matches); earliest known use is a Mises Wire post: Repeaters include the Florida House staff analysis: ; ; ; Liberty University's Standing for Freedom Center: ; and .

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Democracy

More quotes by James Madison

But what is Government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?

Federalist Papers (1787)

The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex.

Federalist Papers (1787)

Slavery is, as you justly complain, a sad blot on our free country.

Letter to Lafayette (1821)

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.

The Constitution requires an adoption in toto, and for ever.

Letter to Alexander Hamilton (1788)

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The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them in parliament!

Vladimir Lenin The State and Revolution (1917)

The law itself is the instrument of the ruling class; hence it is a logical impossibility for another class to assume power legally.

Oliver Cox Caste, Class, and Race: A Study in Social Dynamics (1948)

The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of bourgeois stupidity.

Gustave Flaubert

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: James Madison (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.