Happy Birthday, Our First Atheist President

My favorite Madison quotes:

• In no instance have... the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people.
• In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.
• Learned Institutions ought to be favorite objects with every free people. They throw that light over the public mind which is the best security against crafty and dangerous encroachments on the public liberty.
• Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.
• Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.
• The capacity of the female mind for studies of the highest order cannot be doubted, having been sufficiently illustrated by its works of genius, of erudition, and of science.
• 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.
• The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.
• The number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the state.
• The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries.
• Union of religious sentiments begets a surprising confidence.

And finally:

• The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.

He wouldn't make it past the primaries today...