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Alexander Hamilton Quotations

Alexander Hamilton Report on Public Credit
Categories: Budget
Date: January 9, 1790
As on the one hand, the necessity for borrowing in particular emergencies cannot be doubted, so on the other, it is equally evident that to be able to borrow upon good terms, it is essential that the credit of a nation should be well established.

Alexander Hamilton Report on Manufactures
Categories: Commerce
Date: December 5, 1791
Measures which serve to abridge the free competition of foreign Articles, have a tendency to occasion an enhancement of prices.

Alexander Hamilton Report on a National Bank
Categories: Commerce
Date: December 13, 1790
Industry is increased, commodities are multiplied, agriculture and manufacturers flourish: and herein consists the true wealth and prosperity of a state.

Alexander Hamilton letter to James Bayard
Categories: Constitution
Date: April, 1802
[T]he present Constitution is the standard to which we are to cling. Under its banners, bona fide must we combat our political foes - rejecting all changes but through the channel itself provides for amendments.

Alexander Hamilton Federalist 81
Categories: Constitutional Interpretation
Date: 1788
[T]he Constitution ought to be the standard of construction for the laws, and that wherever there is an evident opposition, the laws ought to give place to the Constitution. But this doctrine is not deducible from any circumstance peculiar to the plan of convention, but from the general theory of a limited Constitution.
Alexander Hamilton remarks to the New York Ratifying Convention
Categories: Federal Government
Date: June, 1788
The great leading objects of the federal government, in which revenue is concerned, are to maintain domestic peace, and provide for the common defense. In these are comprehended the regulation of commerce that is, the whole system of foreign intercourse; the support of armies and navies, and of the civil administration.

Alexander Hamilton speech to the New York Ratifying Convention
Categories: Federalism
Date: June 24, 1788
While the constitution continues to be read, and its principles known, the states, must, by every rational man, be considered as essential component parts of the union; and therefore the idea of sacrificing the former to the latter is totally inadmissible.

Alexander Hamilton speech to the New York Ratifying Convention
Categories: Federalism
Date: June 17, 1788
This balance between the National and State governments ought to be dwelt on with peculiar attention, as it is of the utmost importance. It forms a double security to the people. If one encroaches on their rights they will find a powerful protection in the other. Indeed, they will both be prevented from overpassing their constitutional limits by a certain rivalship, which will ever subsist between them.

Alexander Hamilton speech to the New York Ratifying Convention
Categories: Federalism
Date: June 17, 1788
The State governments possess inherent advantages, which will ever give them an influence and ascendancy over the National Government, and will for ever preclude the possibility of federal encroachments. That their liberties, indeed, can be subverted by the federal head, is repugnant to every rule of political calculation.

Alexander Hamilton Tully, No. 3
Categories: Government
Date: August 28, 1794
The instrument by which it [government] must act are either the AUTHORITY of the laws or FORCE. If the first be destroyed, the last must be substituted; and where this becomes the ordinary instrument of government there is an end to liberty!

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 65
Categories: Government
Date: March 7, 1788
If mankind were to resolve to agree in no institution of government, until every part of it had been adjusted to the most exact standard of perfection, society would soon become a general scene of anarchy, and the world a desert.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 34
Categories: Human Nature
Date: January 4, 1788
To model our political system upon speculations of lasting tranquility, is to calculate on the weaker springs of the human character.

Alexander Hamilton The Farmer Refuted
Categories: Human Nature
Date: February 23, 1775
There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human nature rise above itself, in acts of bravery and heroism.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 78
Categories: Judiciary
Date: 1788
The Judiciary...has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society, and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither force nor will.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 81
Categories: Judiciary
Date: 1788
[T]here is not a syllable in the plan under consideration which directly empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution.

Alexander Hamilton speaking to his grieving wife
Categories: Last Words
Date: July 12, 1804
Remember, my Eliza, you are a Christian.

Alexander Hamilton The Farmer Refuted
Categories: Laws of Nature
Date: 1775
To grant that there is a supreme intelligence who rules the world and has established laws to regulate the actions of his creatures; and still to assert that man, in a state of nature, may be considered as perfectly free from all restraints of law and government, appears to a common understanding altogether irreconcilable. Good and wise men, in all ages, have embraced a very dissimilar theory. They have supposed that the deity, from the relations we stand in to himself and to each other, has constituted an eternal and immutable law, which is indispensably obligatory upon all mankind, prior to any human institution whatever. This is what is called the law of nature....Upon this law depend the natural rights of mankind: the Supreme Being gave existence to man, together with the means of preserving and beatifying that existence. He endowed him with rational faculties, by the help of which, to discern and pursue such things, as were consistent with his duty and interest, and invested him with an inviolable right to personal liberty, and personal safety…The Sacred Rights of Mankind are not to be rummaged for, among old parchments, or musty records. They are written, as with a sun beam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the Hand of the Divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power
Alexander Hamilton A Full Vindication of the Measures of the Congress, &c.
Categories: Liberty
Date: December 15, 1774
No man in his senses can hesitate in choosing to be free, rather than a slave.

Alexander Hamilton Report on a National Bank
Categories: Liberty
Date: December 13, 1790
[H]owever weak our country may be, I hope we shall never sacrifice our liberties.

Alexander Hamilton Pacificus, No. 6
Categories: International Relations
Date: July 17, 1793
Foreign influence is truly the Grecian horse to a republic. We cannot be too careful to exclude its influence.

Alexander Hamilton Report on Public Credit
Categories: International Relations
Date: January 9, 1790
States, like individuals, who observe their engagements, are respected and trusted: while the reverse is the fate of those who pursue an opposite conduct.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 22
Categories: The People
Date: December 14, 1787
The fabric of American empire ought to rest on the solid basis of THE CONSENT OF THE PEOPLE. The streams of national power ought to flow from that pure, original fountain of all legitimate authority.

Alexander Hamilton speech to the New York Ratifying Convention
Categories: The People
Date: June, 1788
It was remarked yesterday that a numerous representation was necessary to obtain the confidence of the people. This is not generally true. The confidence of the people will easily be gained by a good administration. This is the true touchstone.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 1
Categories: Politics and Parties
Date: October 27, 1787
In politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.

Alexander Hamilton The Farmer Refuted
Categories: Power
Date: February 23, 1775
A fondness for power is implanted, in most men, and it is natural to abuse it, when acquired.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 69
Categories: The Presidency
Date: March 14, 1788
Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks; it is not less essential to the steady administration of the laws; to the protection of property against those irregular and high-handed combinations which sometimes interrupt the ordinary course of justice; to the security of liberty against the enterprises and assaults of ambition, of faction, and of anarchy.

Alexander Hamilton speech in the New York ratifying convention
Categories: The People
Date: June 17, 1788
Here sir, the people govern.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 71
Categories: Republican Government
Date: March 18, 1788
The republican principle demands that the deliberate sense of the community should govern the conduct of those to whom they intrust the management of their affairs; but it does not require an unqualified complaisance to every sudden breeze of passion or to every transient impulse which the people may receive from the arts of men, who flatter their prejudices to betray their interests.

Alexander Hamilton The Farmer Refuted
Categories: Rights
Date: February 23, 1775
The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for, among old parchments, or musty records. They are written, as with a sun beam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.

Alexander Hamilton The Farmer Refuted
Categories: Rights
Date: February 23, 1775
The fundamental source of all your errors, sophisms and false reasonings is a total ignorance of the natural rights of mankind. Were you once to become acquainted with these, you could never entertain a thought, that all men are not, by nature, entitled to a parity of privileges. You would be convinced, that natural liberty is a gift of the beneficent Creator to the whole human race, and that civil liberty is founded in that; and cannot be wrested from any people, without the most manifest violation of justice.

Alexander Hamilton speech to the New York Ratifying Convention
Categories: House of Representatives, Senate, Separation of Powers
Date: June 25, 1788
Good constitutions are formed upon a comparison of the liberty of the individual with the strength of government: If the tone of either be too high, the other will be weakened too much. It is the happiest possible mode of conciliating these objects, to institute one branch peculiarly endowed with sensibility, another with knowledge and firmness. Through the opposition and mutual control of these bodies, the government will reach, in its regular operations, the perfect balance between liberty and power.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 21
Categories: Taxation
Date: Unknown
It is a singular advantage of taxes on articles of consumption that they contain in their own nature a security against excess. They prescribe their own limit, which cannot be exceeded without defeating the end purposed - that is, an extension of the revenue.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 31
Categories: Truth
Date: January 1, 1788
In disquisitions of every kind there are certain primary truths, or first principles, upon which all subsequent reasoning must depend.

Alexander Hamilton Report on Manufactures
Categories: Work
Date: December, 1791
To cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by multiplying the objects of enterprise, is not among the least considerable of the expedients, by which the wealth of a nation may be promoted.

Alexander Hamilton speech to the New York Ratifying Convention
Categories: Human Nature
Date: June, 1788
As riches increase and accumulate in few hands, as luxury prevails in society, virtue will be in a greater degree considered as only a graceful appendage of wealth, and the tendency of things will be to depart from the republican standard. This is the real disposition of human nature; it is what neither the honorable member nor myself can correct. It is a common misfortunate that awaits our State constitution, as well as all others.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 15
Categories: Government
Date: Unknown
Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 26
Categories: Government
Date: Unknown
The citizens of America have too much discernment to be argued into anarchy. And I am much mistaken if experience has not wrought a deep and solemn conviction in the public mind that greater energy of government is essential to the welfare and prosperity of the community.

Alexander Hamilton speech to the New York Ratifying Convention
Categories: Government
Date: June, 1788
I will venture to assert that no combination of designing men under heaven will be capable of making a government unpopular which is in its principles a wise and good one, and vigorous in its operations.

Alexander Hamilton speech to the Ratifying Convention of New York
Categories: The People
Date: June, 1788
It is an unquestionable truth, that the body of the people in every country desire sincerely its prosperity. But it is equally unquestionable that they do not possess the discernment and stability necessary for systematic government. To deny that they are frequently led into the grossest of errors, by misinformation and passion, would be a flattery which their own good sense must despise.

Alexander Hamilton speech to the New York Ratifying Convention
Categories: Federal Government
Date: June, 1788
I am persuaded that a firm union is as necessary to perpetuate our liberties as it is to make us respectable; and experience will probably prove that the National Government will be as natural a guardian of our freedom as the State Legislatures.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 68
Categories: The Presidency
Date: March 14, 1788
This process of election affords a moral certainty that the office of President will seldom fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 69
Categories: The Presidency
Date: March 14, 1788
A feeble executive implies a feeble execution of the government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government ill executed, whatever may be its theory, must be, in practice, a bad government.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 71
Categories: The People
Date: March 18, 1788
It is a just observation that the people commonly intend the Public Good. This often applies to their very errors. But their good sense would despise the adulator who should pretend they always reason right about the means of promoting it.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 78
Categories: Judiciary
Date: 1788
The standard of good behavior for the continuance in office of the judicial magistracy is certainly one of the most valuable of the modern improvements in the practice of government.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 78
Categories: Judiciary
Date: 1788
And it proves, in the last place, that liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone, but would have everything to fear from its union with either of the other departments.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 81
Categories: Judiciary
Date: 1788
In the first place, there is not a syllable in the plan under consideration which directly empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution, or which gives them any greater latitude in this respect than may be claimed by the courts of every State.

Alexander Hamilton speech at the New York Ratifying Convention
Categories: Federalism
Date: June, 1788
When you assemble from your several counties in the Legislature, were every member to be guided only by the apparent interest of his county, government would be impracticable. There must be a perpetual accomodation and sacrifice of local advantage to general expediency.

Alexander Hamilton speech at the New York Ratifying Convention
Categories: Human Nature
Date: June, 1788
There are certain social principles in human nature, from which we may draw the most solid conclusions with respect to the conduct of individuals and of communities. We love our families more than our neighbors; we love our neighbors more than our countrymen in general. The human affections, like solar heat, lose their intensity as they depart from the centre... On these principles, the attachment of the individual will be first and for ever secured by the State governments. They will be a mutual protection and support.

Alexander Hamilton speech to the New York Ratifying Convention
Categories: Federalism
Date: June, 1788
The local interest of a State ought in every case to give way to the interests of the Union. For when a sacrifice of one or the other is necessary, the former becomes only an apparent, partial interest, and should yield, on the principle that the smaller good ought never to oppose the greater good.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 12
Categories: Commerce
Date: November 27, 1787
The prosperity of commerce is now perceived and acknowledged by all enlightened statesmen to be the most useful as well as the most productive source of national wealth, and has accordingly become a primary object of their political cares.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 29
Categories: Arms
Date: January 10, 1788
If a well-regulated militia be the most natural defense of a free country, it ought certainly to be under the regulation and at the disposal of that body which is constituted the guardian of the national security. If standing armies are dangerous to liberty, an efficacious power over the militia in the same body ought, as far as possible, to take away the inducement and the pretext to such unfriendly institutions. If the federal government can command the aid of the militia in those emergencies which call for the military arm in support of the civil magistrate, it can the better dispense with the employment of a different kind of force. If it cannot avail itself of the former, it will be obliged to recur to the latter. To render an army unnecessary will be a more certain method of preventing its existence than a thousand prohibitions upon paper.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 29
Categories: Arms
Date: January 10, 1788
There is something so far-fetched and so extravagant in the idea of danger to liberty from the militia that one is at a loss whether to treat it with gravity or with raillery; whether to consider it as a mere trial of skill, like the paradoxes of rhetoricians; as a disingenuous artifice to instil prejudices at any price; or as the serious.

Alexander Hamilton Address to the Electors of the State of New York
Categories: Taxation
Date: March, 1801
As to Taxes, they are evidently inseparable from Government. It is impossible without them to pay the debts of the nation, to protect it from foreign danger, or to secure individuals from lawless violence and rapine.

Alexander Hamilton Report on Manufactures
Categories: Commerce
Date: 1790
The tendency of a national bank is to increase public and private credit. The former gives power to the state, for the protection of its rights and interests: and the latter facilitates and extends the operations of commerce among individuals. Industry is increased, commodities are multiplied, agriculture and manufacturers flourish: and herein consists the true wealth and prosperity of a state.

Alexander Hamilton Vindication of the Funding System
Categories: Property
Date: 1792
Wherever indeed a right of property is infringed for the general good, if the nature of the case admits of compensation, it ought to be made; but if compensation be impracticable, that impracticability ought to be an obstacle to a clearly essential reform.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 1
Categories: The American Revolution
Date: October 27, 1787
It seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force. If there be any truth in the remark, the crisis at which we are arrived may with propriety be regarded as the era in which that decision is to be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall act may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind.

Alexander Hamilton Remarks in the New York Ratifying Convention
Categories: Government
Date: June, 1788
The true principle of government is this - make the system compleat in its structure; give a perfect proportion and balance to its parts; and the powers you give it will never affect your security.

Alexander Hamilton speech to the New York Ratifying Convention
Categories: Constitution
Date: June, 1788
I trust that the proposed Constitution afford a genuine specimen of representative government and republican government; and that it will answer, in an eminent degree, all the beneficial purposes of society.

Alexander Hamilton speech to the New York Ratifying Convention
Categories: Government
Date: June, 1788
The history of ancient and modern republics had taught them that many of the evils which those republics suffered arose from the want of a certain balance, and that mutual control indispensable to a wise administration. They were convinced that popular assemblies are frequently misguided by ignorance, by sudden impulses, and the intrigues of ambitious men; and that some firm barrier against these operations was necessary. They, therefore, instituted your Senate.

Alexander Hamilton Speech to the New York Ratifying Convention
Categories: Power
Date: June, 1788
The great desiderata are a free representation and mutual checks. When these are obtained, all our apprehensions of the extent of powers are unjust and imaginary.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 84
Categories: Rights
Date: 1788
The truth is, after all the declamations we have heard, that the Constitution is itself, in every rational sense, and to every useful purpose, A BILL OF RIGHTS.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 23
Categories: National Defense
Date: December 17, 1787
The circumstances that endanger the safety of nations are infinite, and for this reason no constitutional shackles can wisely be imposed on the power to which the care of it is committed.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 26
Categories: National Defense
Date: Unknown
The idea of restraining the legislative authority in the means of providing for the national defense is one of those refinements which owe their origin to a zeal for liberty more ardent than enlightened.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 1
Categories: Tyranny
Date: October 27, 1787
Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 34
Categories: National Defense, War
Date: January 4, 1788
To judge from the history of mankind, we shall be compelled to conclude that the fiery and destructive passions of war reign in the human breast with much more powerful sway than the mild and beneficent sentiments of peace; and that to model our political systems upon speculations of lasting tranquillity would be to calculate on the weaker springs of human character.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist, no 71
Categories: Political Leaders
Date: Unknown
When occasions present themselves, in which the interests of the people are at variance with their inclinations, it is the duty of the persons whom they have appointed to be the guardians of those interests, to withstand the temporary delusion, in order to give them time and opportunity for more cool and sedate reflection.

Alexander Hamilton Essay in the American Daily Advertiser
Categories: Constitution
Date: August 28, 1794
If it were to be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws - the first growing out of the last. . . . A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government.
Alexander Hamilton Federalist No. 9
Categories: Republican Government
Date: 1787
The regular distribution of power into distinct departments; the introduction of legislative balances and checks; the institution of courts composed of judges holding their offices during good behavior; the representation of the people in the legislature by deputies of their own election... They are means, and powerful means, by which the excellences of republican government may be retained and its imperfections lessened or avoided.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 9
Categories: Federalism
Date: 1787
The proposed Constitution, so far from implying an abolition of the State governments, makes them constituent parts of the national sovereignty, by allowing them a direct representation in the Senate, and leaves in their possession certain exclusive and very important portions of sovereign power. This fully corresponds, in every rational import of the terms, with the idea of a federal government.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 11
Categories: International Relations, War
Date: 1787
The rights of neutrality will only be respected when they are defended by an adequate power. A nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege of being neutral.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 11
Categories: International Relations
Date: 1787
Let Americans disdain to be the instruments of European greatness! Let the thirteen States, bound together in a strict and indissoluble Union, concur in erecting one great American system, superior to the control of all transatlantic force or influence, and able to dictate the terms of the connection between the old and the new world!
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 12
Categories: Taxation
Date: November 27, 1787
It is evident from the state of the country, from the habits of the people, from the experience we have had on the point itself, that it is impracticable to raise any very considerable sums by direct taxation.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 15
Categories: International Relations
Date: 1787
There is nothing absurd or impracticable in the idea of a league or alliance between independent nations for certain defined purposes precisely stated in a treaty regulating all the details of time, place, circumstance, and quantity; leaving nothing to future discretion; and depending for its execution on the good faith of the parties.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 15
Categories: Power
Date: 1787
Government implies the power of making laws. It is essential to the idea of a law, that it be attended with a sanction; or, in other words, a penalty or punishment for disobedience.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 17
Categories: Justice, Federalism
Date: 1787
There is one transcendant advantage belonging to the province of the State governments... --I mean the ordinary administration of criminal and civil justice.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 21
Categories: Political Leaders
Date: 1787
The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or represenative constitution, is a change of men.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 21
Categories: Taxation
Date: 1787
If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so great as when they are confined within proper and moderate bounds. This forms a complete barrier against any material oppression of the citizens by taxes of this class, and is itself a natural limitation of the power of imposing them.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 25
Categories: International Relations
Date: December 21, 1787
War, like most other things, is a science to be acquired and perfected by diligence, by perserverance, by time, and by practice.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 32
Categories: Separation of Powers
Date: January 3, 1788
But as the plan of the convention aims only at a partial union or consolidation, the State governments would clearly retain all the rights of sovereignty which they before had, and which were not, by that act, EXCLUSIVELY delegated to the United States.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 31
Categories: Power
Date: January 1, 1788
A government ought to contain in itself every power requisite to the full accomplishment of the objects commmitted to its care, and to the complete execution of the trusts for which it is responsible, free from every other control but a regard to the public good and to the sense of the people.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 33
Categories: Power, Tyranny
Date: January 3, 1788
If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 33
Categories: Constitutional Interpretation
Date: January 3, 1788
The propriety of a law, in a constitutional light, must always be deteremined by the nature of the powers upon which it is founded.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 34
Categories: Constitution
Date: January 4, 1788
Constitutions of civil government are not to be framed upon a calculation of existing exigencies, but upon a combination of these with the probable exigencies of ages, according to the natural and tried course of human affairs. Nothing, therefore, can be more fallacious than to infer the extent of any power, proper to be lodged in the national government, from an estimate of its immediate necessities.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 34
Categories: International Relations, War
Date: January 4, 1788
Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 35
Categories: Taxation
Date: 1788
There is no part of the administration of government that requires extensive information and a thorough knowledge of the principles of political economy, so much as the business of taxation. The man who understands those principles best will be least likely to resort to oppressive expedients, or sacrifice any particular class of citizens to the procurement of revenue. It might be demonstrated that the most productive system of finance will always be the least burdensome.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 68
Categories: Political Leaders, The Presidency, Political Leaders
Date: March 14, 1788
It will not be too strong to say, that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station [of President] filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virture.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 70
Categories: The Presidency
Date: March 14, 1788
The ingredients which constitute energy in the Executive are, first, unity; secondly, duration; thirdly, an adequate provision for its support; fourthly, competent powers. ... The ingredients which constitute safety in the republican sense are, first, a due dependence on the people, secondly, a due responsibility.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 71
Categories: Separation of Powers
Date: March 18, 1788
It is one thing to be subordinate to the laws, and another [for the Executive] to be dependent on the legislative body. The first comports with, the last violates, the fundamental principles of good government; and, whatever may be the forms of the Constitution, unites all power in the same hands.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 73, on the Veto Power
Categories: The Presidency
Date: March 21, 1788
The injury which may possibly be done by defeating a few good laws, will be amply compensated by the advantage of preventing a number of bad ones.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 74
Categories: National Defense, The Presidency
Date: March 25, 1788
Of all the cares or concerns of government, the direction of war most peculiarly demands those qualities which distinguish the exercise of power by a single hand. The direction of war implies the direction of the common strength; and the power of directing and employing the common strength, forms a usual and essential part in the definition of the executive authority.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 78
Categories: Judiciary
Date: 1788
Whoever attentively considers the different departments of power must perceive, that, in a government in which they are separated from each other, the judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 78
Categories: Judiciary
Date: 1788
... [The Judicial Branch] may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments.

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 84
Categories: Rights
Date: 1788
I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?

Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 85
Categories: Human Nature, Constitution
Date: 1788
I never expect to see a perfect work from imperfect man.

Alexander Hamilton Pacificus no. IV
Categories: Political Leaders
Date: July 10, 1793
[U]nder every form of government, rulers are only trustees for the happiness and interest of their nation, and cannot, consistently with their trust, follow the suggestions of kindness or humanity towards others, to the prejudice of their constituents.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 71
Categories: Human Nature
Date: 1787
It is a general principle of human nature, that a man will be interested in whatever he possesses, in proportion to the firmness or precariousness of the tenure by which he holds it; will be less attached to what he holds by a momentary or uncertain title, than to what he enjoys by a durable or certain title; and, of course, will be willing to risk more for the sake of the one, than for the sake of the other. This remark is not less applicable to a political privilege, or honor, or trust, than to any article of ordinary property.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 1
Categories: Politics and Parties
Date: 1787
Ambition, avarice, personal animosity, party opposition, and many other motives, not more laudable than these, are apt to operate as well upon those who support as upon those who oppose the right side of a question. Were there not even these inducements to moderation, nothing could be more illjudged than that intolerant spirit, which has, at all times, characterized political parties.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist 7
Categories: Taxation
Date: 1787
There is perhaps, nothing more likely to disturb the tranquillity of nations, than their being bound to mutual contributions for any common object that does not yield an equal and coincident benefit. For it is an observation as true, as it is trite, that there is nothing men differ so readily about as the payment of money.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist 16
Categories: Government
Date: 1787
It is in vain to hope to guard against events too mighty for human foresight or precaution, and it would be idle to object to a government because it could not perform impossibilities.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 34
Categories: Government
Date: 1788
[I]n framing a Government for a nation we ought, in those provisions which are designed to be permanent, to calculate not on temporary, but on permanent causes of expence.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 35
Categories: Politics and Parties
Date: 1788
Necessity, especially in politics, often occasions false hopes, false reasonings and a system of measures, correspondently erroneous.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 65
Categories: Political Leaders
Date: 1788
The awful discretion, which a court of impeachments must necessarily have, to doom to honor or to infamy the most confidential and the most distinguished characters of the community, forbids the commitment of the trust to a small number of persons.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 65
Categories: Constitution
Date: 1788
To answer the purpose of the adversaries of the Constitution, they ought to prove, not merely that particular provisions in it are not the best, which might have been imagined; but that the plan upon the whole is bad and pernicious.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist 71
Categories: Human Nature
Date: 1788
It is a general principle of human nature, that a man will be interested in whatever he possesses, in proportion to the firmness or precariousness of the tenure by which he holds it; will be less attached to what he holds by a momentary or uncertain title
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 72
Categories: Human Nature
Date: 1788
That experience is the parent of wisdom is an adage the truth of which is recognized by the wisest as well as the simplest of mankind.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist 75
Categories: Human Nature
Date: 1788
The history of human conduct does not warrant that exalted opinion of human virtue which would make it wise in a nation to commit interests of so delicate and momentous a kind as those which concern its intercourse with the rest of the world, to the sole disposal of a magistrate, created and circumstanced, as would be a president of the United States.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 76
Categories: Virtue
Date: 1788
The institution of delegated power implies that there is a portion of virtue and honor among mankind, which may be a reasonable foundation of confidence. And experience justifies the theory: It has been found to exist in the most corrupt periods of the most corrupt governments.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist 80
Categories: Judiciary
Date: 1788
The reasonableness of the agency of the national courts in cases in which the state tribunals cannot be supposed to be impartial, speaks for itself. No man ought certainly to be a judge in his own cause, or in any cause in respect to which he has the least interest or bias.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist 83
Categories: Government, Virtue
Date: 1788
The truth is that the general genius of a government is all that can be substantially relied upon for permanent effects. Particular provisions, though not altogether useless, have far less virtue and efficacy than are commonly ascribed to them; and the want of them will never be with men of sound discernment a decisive objection to any plan which exhibits the leading characters of a good government.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 20
Categories: Constitution, Power, Tyranny
Date: Unknown
Tyranny has perhaps oftener grown out of the assumptions of power, called for, on pressing exigencies, by a defective constitution, than out of the full exercise of the largest constitutional authorities.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 16
Categories: Arms, Human Nature, National Defense, War
Date: Unknown
When the sword is once drawn, the passions of men observe no bounds of moderation
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 6
Categories: Human Nature, International Relations, War
Date: Unknown
To look for a continuation in harmony between a number of independent unconnected sovereignties, situated in the same neighborhood, would be to disregard the uniform course of human events, and to set at defiance the accumulated experience of ages
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 6
Categories: Human Nature, International Relations, War
Date: Unknown
To look for a continuation in harmony between a number of independent unconnected sovereignties, situated in the same neighborhood, would be to disregard the uniform course of human events, and to set at defiance the accumulated experience of ages
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 68
Categories: Constitutionalism, Democracy, Tyranny
Date: Unknown
What bitter anguish would not the people of Athens have often escaped if their government had contained so provident a safeguard against tyranny of their own passions? Popular liberty might then have escaped the indelible reproach of decreeing to the same citizens the hemlock on one day and statutes the next.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 7
Categories: Commerce, Economy
Date: Unknown
The Spirit of Enterprise, which characterizes the commercial part of America, has left no occasion of displaying itself unimproved. It is not at all probable that this unbridled spirit would pay much respect to those regulations of trade by which particular States might endeavor to secure exclusive benefits to their own citizens.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No.1
Categories: Rights
Date: Unknown
An over-scrupulous jealousy of danger to the rights of the people, which is more commonly the fault of the head than of the heart, will be represented as mere pretense and artifice, the stale bait for popularity at the expense of the public good.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No.1
Categories: Rights, Tyranny
Date: Unknown
The vigor of government is essential to the security of liberty; that, in the contemplation of a sound and well-informed judgment, their interests can never be separated; and that a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidding appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 71
Categories: Legislative Process, Tyranny
Date: Unknown
The representatives of the people, in a popular assembly, seem sometimes to fancy that they are the people themselves, and betray strong symptoms of impatience and disgust at the least sign of opposition from any other quarter; as if the exercise of its rights, by either the executive or judiciary, were a breach of their privilege and an outrage to their dignity.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 65
Categories: Tyranny
Date: Unknown
The awful discretion, which a court of impeachments must necessarily have, to doom to honor or to infamy the most confidential and the most distinguished characters of the community, forbids the commitment of the trust to a small number of persons.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 72
Categories: Human Nature, Self-Interest
Date: Unknown
This position will not be disputed, so long as it is admitted that the desire of reward is one of the strongest incentives of human conduct, or that the best security for the fidelity of mankind is to make their interest coincide with their duty. Even the love of fame, the ruling passion of the noblest minds…would on the contrary deter him from the undertaking, when he foresaw that he must quit the scene before he could accomplish the work…
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 79
Categories: History
Date: Unknown
The mensuration of the faculties of the mind has, I believe, no place in the catalogue of known arts. An attempt to fix the boundary between the regions of ability and inability, would much oftener give scope to personal and party attachments and enmities, than advance the interests of justice, or the public good.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 85
Categories: History
Date: Unknown
I should esteem it the extreme of imprudence to prolong the precarious state of our national affairs, and to expose the union to the jeopardy of successive experiments, in the chimerical pursuit of a perfect plan. I never expect to see a perfect work from imperfect man.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 70
Categories: Executive
Date: Unknown
A council to a magistrate, who is himself responsible for what he does, are generally nothing better than a clog upon his good intentions, are often the instruments and accomplices of his bad, and are almost always a cloak to his faults.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 72
Categories: Executive
Date: Unknown
One ill effect of exclusion would be the diminution of the inducements to good behavior. …This position will not be disputed so long as it is admitted that the desire of reward is one of the strongest incentives of human conduct; or that the best security for the fidelity of mankind is to make their interests coincide with their duty.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 72
Categories: Executive
Date: Unknown
Exclusion would be the temptation to sordid views, to peculation, and, in some instances, to usurpation.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 72
Categories: Executive
Date: Unknown
A third ill effect of the exclusion would be the depriving the community of the experience gained by Chief Magistrate in the exercise of his office. That experience is the parent of wisdom is an adage the truth of which is recognized by the wisest as well as the simplest of mankind.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers
Categories: Executive
Date: Unknown
A third ill effect of the exclusion would be the depriving the community of the experience gained by Chief Magistrate in the exercise of his office. That experience is the parent of wisdom is an adage the truth of which is recognized by the wisest as well as the simplest of mankind.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers
Categories: Executive
Date: Unknown
A third ill effect of the exclusion would be the depriving the community of the experience gained by Chief Magistrate in the exercise of his office. That experience is the parent of wisdom is an adage the truth of which is recognized by the wisest as well as the simplest of mankind.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 72
Categories: Executive
Date: Unknown
Exclusion would be that it would operate as a constitutional interdiction of stability in the administration. By necessitating a change of men, in the first office in the nation, it would necessitate a mutability of measures.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 72
Categories: Executive
Date: Unknown
The propriety of the thing does not turn upon the supposition of superior wisdom or virtue in the executive, but upon the supposition that the legislature will not be infallible.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 73
Categories: Executive
Date: Unknown
It [the veto power] not only serves as a shield... against the enaction of improper laws. It establishes a salutary check upon the legislative body, calculated to guard the community against the effects of faction, precipitancy, or of any impulse unfriendly to the public good, which may happen to influence a majority of that body.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 74
Categories: Executive
Date: Unknown
Humanity and good policy conspire to dictate, that the benign prerogative of pardoning should be as little as possible fettered or embarrassed. The criminal code of every country partakes so much of necessary severity, that without an easy access to exceptions in favor of unfortunate guilt, justice would wear a countenance too sanguinary and cruel.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 74
Categories: Executive
Date: Unknown
It is not to be doubted that a single man of prudence and good sense is better fitted, in delicate conjunctures, to balance the motives which may plead for and against the remission of the punishment than any numerous body whatever.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 17
Categories: Federalism
Date: Unknown
I confess I am at a loss to discover what temptation the persons entrusted with the administration of the general government could ever feel to divest the States of the authorities of that description. The regulation of the mere domestic police of a State appears to me to hold out slender allurements to ambition.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 17
Categories: Federalism
Date: Unknown
The administration of private justice between the citizens of the same state, the supervision of agriculture and of other concerns of a similar nature, all those things in short which are proper to be provided for by local legislation, can never be desirable cares of a general jurisdiction….the attempt to exercise these powers would be as troublesome as it would be nugatory; and the possession of them, for that reason, would contribute nothing to the dignity, to the importance, or to the splendour of the national government.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 17
Categories: Executive
Date: Unknown
It will always be far more easy for the State governments to encroach upon the national authorities, than for the national government to encroach upon the state authorities. The proof of this proposition turns on the greater degree of influence, which the state governments, if they administer their affairs with uprightness and prudence, will generally possess over the people.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 17
Categories: Federalism
Date: Unknown
The variety of more minute interests, which will necessarily fall under the superintendence of the local administrations…cannot be particularized without involving a detail too tedious and uninteresting to compensate for the instruction it might afford.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 27
Categories: Federalism
Date: Unknown
It may be laid down as a general rule, that their confidence in and obedience to a government, will be commonly proportioned to the goodness or badness of its administration…Various reasons have been suggested in the course of these papers, to induce a probability that the general government will be better administered than the particular governments.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 28
Categories: Federalism
Date: Unknown
The General Government will at all times stand ready to check the usurpations of the state governments; and these will have the same disposition towards the General Government. The people, by throwing themselves into either scale, will infallibly make it preponderate. If their rights are invaded by either, they can make use of the other, as the instrument of redress…the state governments will in all possible contingencies afford complete security against invasions of the public liberty by the national authority. Projects of usurpation cannot be marked under pretences so likely to escape the penetration of select bodies of men as of the people at large. The Legislatures will discover better means of information. They can discover the danger at a distance…they can at once adopt a regular plan of opposition, in which they can combine all the resources of the community. They can readily communicate with each other in the different states; and unite their common forces for the protection of their common liberty.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 31
Categories: Federalism
Date: Unknown
This mode of reasoning appears some times to turn upon the supposition of usurpation in the national government…The moment we launch into conjectures about the usurpations of the federal government, we get into an unfathomable abyss, and fairly put ourselves out of the reach of all reasoning. Imagination may range at pleasure until it gets bewildered amidst the labyrinths of an enchanted castle…it is easy to imagine an endless train of possible dangers; and by indulging an excess of jealousy and timidity, we may bring ourselves to a state of absolute skepticism and irresolution…all observations founded upon the danger of usurpation, ought to be referred to the composition and structure of the government, not to the nature or extent of its powers.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 33
Categories: Constitutional Convention, Federalism
Date: Unknown
The Convention probably foresaw what it has been a principal aim of these papers to inculcate that the danger which most threatens our political welfare is, that the state governments will finally sap the foundations of the Union.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 34
Categories: Federalism
Date: Unknown
It will be well to advert to the proportion between the objects that will require a federal provision in respect to revenue; and those which will require a state provision. We shall discover that the former are altogether unlimited; and that the latter are circumscribed within very moderate bounds.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 36
Categories: Federalism
Date: Unknown
The supposition of a want of proper knowledge [in the Federal government of “local circumstances], seems to be entirely destitute of foundation. If any question is depending in a State legislature respecting one of the counties which demand a knowledge of local details, how is it acquired? No doubt from the information of the members of the county. Cannot the like knowledge be obtained in the national legislature from the representatives of each state. And is it not to be presumed that the men who will generally be sent there, will be possessed of the necessary degree of intelligence, to be able to communicate that information? Is the knowledge of local circumstances, as applied to taxation, a minute topographical acquaintance?
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 59
Categories: Federalism
Date: Unknown
Nothing can be more evident, than that an exclusive power of regulating elections for the National Government, in the hands of the State Legislatures, would leave the existence of the Union entirely at their mercy…It is to little purpose to say that a neglect or omission of this kind [not letting the feds have elections], would be unlikely to take place. The constitutional possibility of the thing, without an equivalent for the risk, is an unanswerable objection.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 59
Categories: Federalism
Date: Unknown
It is certainly true, that the State Legislatures, by forbearing the appointment of Senators, may destroy the National Government. But it will not follow, that because they have the power to do this in one instance, they ought to have it in every other….So far as that construction may expose the Union to the possibility of injury from the State Legislatures, it is an evil; but it is an evil, which could not have been avoided without excluding the States, in their political capacities, wholly from a place in the organization of the National Government. If this had been done, it would doubtless have been interpreted into an entire dereliction of the federal principle; and would certainly have deprived the State governments of that absolute safe-guard, which they will enjoy under this provision.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 59
Categories: Federalism
Date: Unknown
The scheme of separate confederacies, which will always multiply the chances of ambition, will be a never failing bait to all such influential characters in the State administrations as are capable of preferring their own emolument and advancement to the public weal.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 85
Categories: Federalism
Date: Unknown
We may safely rely on the disposition of the State legislatures to erect barriers against the encroachments of the national authority.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 7
Categories: Taxation
Date: Unknown
The reluctance with which men commonly part with money for purposes, that have outlived the exigencies which produced them, and interfere with the supply of immediate wants…There is perhaps nothing more likely to disturb the tranquility of nations, than their being bound to mutual contributions for any common object, which does not yield an equal and coincident benefit. For it is an observation as true, as it is trite, that there is nothing men differ so readily about as the payment of money.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 6
Categories: Human Nature
Date: Unknown
To presume a want of motives for such contests…would be to forget that men are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 6
Categories: Human Nature
Date: Unknown
Has it not, on the contrary, invariably been found, that momentary passions and immediate interests have a more active and imperious control over human conduct than general or remote considerations of policy, utility, or justice? Have republics in practice been less addicted to war than monarchies? Are not the former administered by men as well as the latter?
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 8
Categories: Human Nature
Date: Unknown
These are not vague inferences…but they are solid conclusions drawn from the natural and necessary progress of human affairs.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 8
Categories: Human Nature
Date: Unknown
The inhabitants of territories, often the theatre of war, are unavoidably subject to frequent infringements on their rights, which serve to weaken their sense of those rights; and by degrees, the people are brought to consider the soldiery not only as their protectors but as their superiors.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 12
Categories: Human Nature
Date: Unknown
It is astonishing that so simple a truth should ever have had an adversary; and it is one among a multitude of proofs, how apt a spirit of ill-informed jealousy, or of too great abstraction and refinement is to lead men astray from the plainest paths of reason and conviction.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 15
Categories: Human Nature
Date: Unknown
It is a singular capriciousness of the human mind, that after all the admonitions we have had from experience on this head, there should still be found men, who object to the new constitution for deviating from a principle which has been found the bane of the old.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 15
Categories: Human Nature
Date: Unknown
The experience of treaties being broken with impunity provide an “afflicting lesson to mankind how little dependence is to be placed on treaties which have no other sanction than the obligations of good faith; and which oppose general considerations of peace and justice to the impulse of any immediate interest and passion.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 15
Categories: Human Nature
Date: Unknown
The constitution of human nature” teaches us not to expect “that the persons, entrusted with the administration of the affairs of the particular members of a confederacy, will at all times be ready, with perfect good humor, and an unbiased regard to the public weal, to execute the resolutions of decrees of the general authority.” “This tendency is not difficult to be accounted for,” Publius argues, “It has its origin in the love of power.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 22
Categories: Human Nature
Date: Unknown
Nothing is more natural to men in office, than to look with peculiar deference towards that authority to which they owe their official existence.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 27
Categories: Human Nature
Date: Unknown
Man is very much a creature of habit. A thing that rarely strikes his senses will generally have but little influence upon his mind. A government continually at a distance and out of sight, can hardly be expected to interest the sensations of the people. The inference is, that the authority of the Union, and the affections of the citizens towards it, will be strengthened rather than weakened by its extension to what are called matters of internal concern.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 31
Categories: Human Nature
Date: Unknown
The obscurity is more often in the passions and prejudices of the reasoner than in the subject.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 35
Categories: Human Nature
Date: Unknown
common interest may always be reckoned upon as the surest bond of sympathy.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 35
Categories: Human Nature
Date: Unknown
Necessity, especially in politics, often occasions false hopes, false reasonings, and a system of measures, correspondingly erroneous.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 35
Categories: Human Nature
Date: Unknown
With regard to the learned professions, little need be observed; they truly form no distinct interest in society…[discussing the landed, merchant, and learned classes in legislative assembly] Will not the man of the learned profession, who will feel a neutrality to the rivalships between the different branches of industry, be likely to prove an impartial arbiter between them, ready to promote either, so far as it shall appear to him conducive to the general interests of society?
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 36
Categories: Human Nature
Date: Unknown
The representative assemblies “will consist almost entirely of proprietors of land, of merchants and members of the learned professions, who will truly represent all those different interests and views…it is admitted there are exceptions to this rule, but not in sufficient number to influence the general complexion or character of the government. There are strong minds in every walk of life that will rise superior to the disadvantages of situation, and will command the tribute due to their merit, not only from the classes to which they particularly belong, but to society in general. The door ought to be equally open to all; and I trust, for the credit of human nature, that we shall see examples of such vigorous plants flourishing in the soil of federal, as well as of state legislation; but occasional instances of this sort, will not render the reasoning founded upon the general course of things less conclusive.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 36
Categories: Human Nature
Date: Unknown
Happy will it be for ourselves, and most honorable for human nature, if we have wisdom and virtue enough to set so glorious an example to mankind!
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 65
Categories: Human Nature
Date: Unknown
Would there not be the greatest reason to apprehend, that error in the first sentence would be the parent of error in the second sentence? That the strong bias of one decision would be apt to overrule the influence of any new lights, which might be brought to vary the complexion of another decision? Those, who know any thing of human nature, will not hesitate to answer these questions in the affirmative.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 71
Categories: Human Nature
Date: Unknown
It is a general principle of human nature, that a man will be interested in whatever he possesses, in proportion to the firmness or precariousness of the tenure, by which he holds it; will be less attached to what he holds by a momentary or uncertain title.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 74
Categories: Human Nature
Date: Unknown
When men, engaged in unjustifiable pursuits, are aware that obstructions may come from a quarter which bare apprehension of opposition from doing what they would with eagerness rush into if no such external impediments were to be feared.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 15
Categories: Law
Date: Unknown
Government implies the power of making laws. It is essential to the idea of a law, that it be attended with a sanction; or, in other words, a penalty or punishment for disobedience.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 25
Categories: Law
Date: Unknown
Wise politicians will be cautious about fettering the government with restrictions that cannot be observed, because they know that every break of the fundamental laws, though dictated by necessity, impairs that sacred reverence which ought to be maintained in the breast of rulers towards the constitution of a country.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 33
Categories: Human Nature
Date: Unknown
The propriety of a law, in a constitutional light, must always be determined by the nature of the powers upon which it is founded.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 33
Categories: Human Nature
Date: Unknown
A LAW, by the very meaning of the term, includes supremacy. It is a rule which those to whom it is prescribed are bound to observe. This results from every political association.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 62
Categories: Law
Date: Unknown
It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 62
Categories: Law
Date: Unknown
Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known and less fixed?
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 73
Categories: Law
Date: Unknown
It may be said that the power of preventing bad laws includes that of preventing good ones; and may be used to the one purpose as well as to the other. But this objection will have little weight with those who can properly estimate the mischiefs of that inconstancy and mutability in the laws, which form the greatest blemish in the character and genius of our governments.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 11
Categories: International Relations
Date: Unknown
By a steady adherence to the Union we may hope, erelong, to become the arbiter of Europe in America, and to be able to incline the balance of European competitions in this part of the world as our interest may dictate.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 22
Categories: International Relations
Date: Unknown
The treaties of the United States, to have any force at all, must be considered as part of the law of the land.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 75
Categories: International Relations
Date: Unknown
Its objects are CONTRACTS with foreign nations which have the force of law, but derive it from the obligations of good faith.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 75
Categories: International Relations
Date: Unknown
They are not rules prescribed by the sovereign to the subject, but agreements between sovereign and sovereign.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 76
Categories: Judiciary
Date: Unknown
But might not his [the president’s] nomination be overruled? I grant it might, yet this could only be to make place for another nomination by himself. The person ultimately appointed must be object of his preference, though perhaps not in the first degree. It is also mot very probable that his nomination would often be overruled.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 78
Categories: Judiciary
Date: Unknown
If, then, the courts of justice are to be considered as the bulwarks of a limited Constitution against legislative encroachments, this consideration will afford a strong argument for the permanent tenure of judicial offices, since nothing will contribute so much as this to that independent spirit in the judges which must be essential to the faithful performance of so arduous a duty.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 22
Categories: Judiciary
Date: Unknown
Laws are a dead letter without the courts to expound and define their true meaning and operation.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 78
Categories: Judiciary
Date: Unknown
[T]hough individual oppression may now and then proceed fro the courts of justice, the general liberty of the people can never be endangered from that quarter…
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 78
Categories: Judiciary
Date: Unknown
The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts. A constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges, as fundamental law. It therefore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body. If there should happen to be an irreconcilable variance between the two, that which has the superior obligation and validity ought, of course, to be preferred; or, in other words, the Constitution ought to be preferred to the statute, the intention of the people to the intention of their agents
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No.80
Categories: Judiciary
Date: Unknown
If there are such things as political axioms, the propriety of the judicial power of a government being co-extensive with its legislative, may be ranked among the number.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 17
Categories: Justice
Date: Unknown
There is one transcendent advantage belonging to the province of the State governments... --I mean the ordinary administration of criminal and civil justice.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 70
Categories: Executive
Date: Unknown
A feeble executive implies a feeble execution of the government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government ill executed, whatever may be its theory, must be, in practice, a bad government.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 70
Categories: Executive
Date: Unknown
Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks; it is not less essential to the steady administration of the laws; to the protection of property against those irregular and high-handed combinations which sometimes interrupt the ordinary course of justice; to the security of liberty against the enterprises and assaults of ambition, of faction, and of anarchy.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers
Categories:
Date: Unknown
The ingredients which constitute energy in the Executive are, first, unity; secondly, duration; thirdly, an adequate provision for its support; fourthly, competent powers.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 70
Categories: Executive
Date: Unknown
The ingredients which constitute energy in the Executive are, first, unity; secondly, duration; thirdly, an adequate provision for its support; fourthly, competent powers.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 70
Categories: Executive
Date: Unknown
That unity is conductive to energy will not be disputed. Decision, activity, secrecy, and dispatch will generally characterize the proceedings of one man in a much more eminent degree than the proceedings of any greater number; and in proportion as the number is increased, these qualities will be diminished.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 71
Categories: Executive
Date: Unknown
It is one thing to be subordinate to the laws, and another [for the Executive] to be dependent on the legislative body. The first comports with, the last violates, the fundamental principles of good government; and, whatever may be the forms of the Constitution, unites all power in the same hands.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 78
Categories: Legislative Process
Date: Unknown
If it be said that the legislative body are themselves the constitutional judges of their own powers, and that the construction they put upon them is conclusive upon the other departments, it may be answered, that this cannot be the natural presumption, where it is not be collected from any particular provisions in the Constitution.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 16
Categories: Government
Date: Unknown
It is vain to hope to guard against events too mighty for human foresight or precaution, and it would be idle to object to a government because it could not perform impossibilities.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 23
Categories: National Defense
Date: Unknown
These powers ought to exist without limitation, because it is impossible to foresee or to define the extent and variety of national exigencies, and the correspondent extent and variety of the means which may be necessary to satisfy them.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 23
Categories: National Defense
Date: Unknown
This power ought to be coextensive with all the possible combinations of such circumstances; and ought to be under the direction of the same councils which are appointed to preside over the common defense.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 23
Categories: National Defense
Date: Unknown
There can be no limitation of that authority which is to provide for the defense and protection of the community in any matter essential to the formation, direction, or support of the NATIONAL FORCES.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 31
Categories: National Defense
Date: Unknown
As the duties of superintending the national defense and of securing the public peace against foreign or domestic violence involve a provision for casualties and dangers to which no possible limits can be assigned, the power of making that provision ought to know no other bounds than the exigencies of the nation and the resources of the community.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 24
Categories: National Defense
Date: Unknown
Though a wide ocean separates the United States from Europe, yet there are various considerations that warn us against an excess of confidence or security.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 24
Categories: National Defense
Date: Unknown
The increasing remoteness of consanguinity is everyday diminishing the force of the family compact between France and Spain. And politicians have ever with great reason considered the ties of blood as feeble and precarious links of political connection.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 1
Categories: Politics and Parties
Date: Unknown
Ambition, avarice, personal animosity, party opposition, and many other motives not more laudable than these, are apt to operate as well upon those who support as those who oppose the right side of a question.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 1
Categories: Politics and Parties
Date: Unknown
Were there not even these inducements to moderation, nothing could be more ill judged than that intolerant spirit which has at all times characterized political parties.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 1
Categories: Politics and Parties
Date: Unknown
For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 1
Categories: Politics and Parties
Date: Unknown
To judge from the conduct of the opposite parties, we shall be led to conclude that they will mutually hope to evince the justness of their opinions, and to increase the number of their converts by the loudness of the declamations and by the bitterness of their invectives.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 70
Categories: Politics and Parties
Date: Unknown
The united credit and influence of several individuals must be more formidable to liberty than the credit and influence of either of them separately.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 1
Categories: Government
Date: Unknown
It will be forgotten, on the one hand, that jealousy is the usual concomitant of violent love, and that the noble enthusiasm of liberty is too apt to be infected with a spirit of narrow and illiberal distrust. On the other hand, it will be equally forgotten, that the vigour of government is essential to the security of liberty.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 23
Categories: Government
Date: Unknown
The means ought to be proportioned to the end; the persons from whose agency the attainment of any end is expected ought to possess the means by which it is to be attained.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 23
Categories: Government
Date: Unknown
It will follow that that government ought to be clothed with all powers requisite to complete execution of its trust.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 23
Categories: Government
Date: Unknown
If we are in earnest about giving the Union energy and duration we must abandon the vain project of legislating upon the States in their collective capacities.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 24
Categories: Government
Date: Unknown
A government, the constitution of which renders it unfit to be trusted with all the powers which a free people ought to delegate to any government, would be an unsafe and improper depositary of the NATIONAL INTERESTS.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 26
Categories: Government
Date: Unknown
[A] power equal to every possible contingency must exist somewhere in the government…
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 9
Categories: Government
Date: Unknown
A republic of this kind, able to withstand an external force, may support itself without any internal corruptions. The form of this society prevents all manner of inconveniences.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 15
Categories: The People
Date: Unknown
[W]e must extend the authority of the Union to the persons of the citizens – the only proper objects of government.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 1
Categories: Politics and Parties
Date: Unknown
We upon many occasions, see wise and good men on the wrong as well as on the right side of questions, of the first magnitude to society. This circumstance, if duly attended to, would furnish a lesson of moderation to those, who are ever so much persuaded of their being right, in the controversy.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 15
Categories: Power
Date: Unknown
There is in the nature of sovereign power an impatience of controul, that disposes those who are invested with the exercise of it, to look with an evil eye upon all external attempts to restrain or direct its operations.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 15
Categories: Power
Date: Unknown
Power controuled or abridged is almost always the rival and enemy of that power by which it is controuled or abridged.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 29
Categories: Power
Date: Unknown
What reason could there be to infer, that force was intended to be the sole instrument of authority, merely because there is a power to make use of it when necessary?
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 71
Categories: The People
Date: Unknown
It is just observation that the people commonly intend the Public Good.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 1
Categories: Constitution
Date: Unknown
After an unequivocal experience of the inefficacy of the subsisting federal government, you are called upon to deliberate on a new Constitution for the United States of America.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 6
Categories: Federalism
Date: Unknown
To look for a continuation in harmony between a number of independent unconnected sovereignties, situated in the same neighborhood, would be to disregard the uniform course of human events, and to set at defiance the accumulated experience of ages.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 6
Categories: Opinion
Date: Unknown
Let experience, the least fallible guide of human opinion, be appealed to for an answer to these inquiries.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 6
Categories: Opinion
Date: Unknown
Those who have a tolerable knowledge of human nature will not stand in need of such lights.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 15
Categories: Opinion
Date: Unknown
There was a time when we were told…that a sense of common interest would preside over the conduct of the respective members…This language at the present day would appear as wild as that great part of what we now hear from the same quarter will be thought, when we shall have received further lessons from that best oracle of wisdom, experience.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 25
Categories: Opinion
Date: Unknown
For it is a truth which the experience of all ages has attested, that the people are always most in danger, when the means of injuring their rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the least suspicion.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 25
Categories: The People
Date: Unknown
I expect we shall be told, that the Militia of the country is its natural bulwark, and would be at all times equal to the national defence…The facts, which from our own experience forbid a reliance of this kind, are too recent to permit us to be the dupes of such a suggestion.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 25
Categories: Opinion, The People
Date: Unknown
This instance is selected from among a multitude that might be cited to confirm the truth already advanced and illustrated by domestic examples; which is, that nations pay little regard to rules and maxims designed in their very nature to run counter to the necessities of society. Wise politicians will be cautious about fettering the government with restrictions, that cannot be observed; because they know that every breach of the fundamental laws, though dictated by necessity, impairs that sacred reverence, which ought to be maintained in the breasts of rulers towards the constitution of a country.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 61
Categories: Opinion, Politics and Parties
Date: Unknown
Hitherto my observations have only aimed at a vindication of the provision in question, on the ground of theoretic propriety…But there remains to be mentioned a positive advantage…I allude to the circumstance of uniformity in the time of elections for the House of Representatives. It is more than possible, that this uniformity may be found by experience to be of great importance to the public welfare; both as a security against the perpetuation of the same spirit in the body; and as a cure for the diseases of faction.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 72
Categories: Truth
Date: Unknown
That experience is the parent of wisdom is an adage, the truth of which is recognized by the wisest as well as the simplest of mankind. What more desirable or more essential than this quality in the governors of nations? Where more desirable or more essential than in the first magistrate of a nation?
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 1
Categories: Virtue
Date: Unknown
It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 6
Categories: Virtue
Date: Unknown
Is it not time to awake from the deceitful dream of a golden age, and to adopt as a practical maxim for the direction of our political conduct, that we, as well as the other inhabitants of the globe, are yet remote from the happy empire of perfect wisdom and perfect virtue?
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 12
Categories: Virtue
Date: Unknown
The genius manly spirit of the people will ill brook the inquisitive and preemptory spirit of excise laws.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 31
Categories: Virtue
Date: Unknown
It is by far the safer course to lay [considerations of the future] altogether aside; and to confine our attention wholly to the nature and extent of the powers as they are delineated in the constitution. Everything beyond this, must be left to the prudence and firmness of the people; who, as they will hold the scales in their own hands, it is to be hoped, will always take care to preserve the constitutional equilibrium between the General and State governments.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 36
Categories: Virtue
Date: Unknown
Happy will it be for ourselves, and most honorable for human nature, if we have wisdom and virtue enough to set so glorious an example to mankind!
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 60
Categories: The People, Virtue
Date: Unknown
Would they not fear that citizens not less tenacious than conscious of their rights would flock from the remotest extremes of their respective states to the places of election, to overthrow their tyrants, and to substitute men who would be disposed to avenge the violated majesty of the people?
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 65
Categories: Virtue
Date: Unknown
To answer the purpose of the adversaries of the Constitution, they ought to prove, not merely, that particular provisions in it are not the best, which might have been imagined; but that the plan upon the whole is bad and pernicious.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 76
Categories: representation
Date: Unknown
The supposition of universal venality in human nature is little less an error in political reasoning than the supposition of universal rectitude. The institution of delegated power implies that there is a portion of virtue and honor among mankind, which may be a reasonable foundation of confidence. And experience justifies the theory: It has been found to exist in the most corrupt periods of the most corrupt governments.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 26
Categories: representation
Date: Unknown
Can it be supposed, that there would not be found one man, discerning enough to detect so atrocious a conspiracy, or bold and honest enough to apprise his constituents of their danger? If such presumptions can fairly be made, there ought to be at once and end of all delegated authority. The people should resolve to recall all the powers they have heretofore parted with out of their own hands; and to divide themselves into as many states as there are countries, in order that they may be able to manage their own concerns in person.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 28
Categories: Right of Revolution
Date: Unknown
If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positives forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual state.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 8
Categories: Liberty
Date: Unknown
Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. Even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates. The violent destruction of life and property incident to war, the continual effort and alarm attendant on a state of continual danger, will compel nations the most attached to liberty to resort for repose and security to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political rights. To be more safe, they at length become willing to run the risk of being less free.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 9
Categories: Separation of Powers
Date: Unknown
The regular distribution of power into distinct departments; the introduction of legislative balances and checks; the institution of courts composed of judges holding their offices during good behavior; the representation of the people in the legislature by deputies of their own election... They are means, and powerful means, by which the excellences of republican govenrment may be retained and its imperfections lessened or avoided.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 71
Categories: Separation of Powers
Date: Unknown
The same rule that teaches the propriety of a partition between the various branches of power, teaches us likewise that this partition ought to be so contrived as to render the one independent of the other.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 73
Categories: Separation of Powers
Date: Unknown
There are men who could neither be distressed nor won into a sacrifice of their duty; but this stern virtue is the growth of few soils: And in the main it will be found, that a power over a man’s support is a power over his will.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 75
Categories: Separation of Powers
Date: Unknown
The history of human conduct does not warrant that exalted opinion of human virtue which would make it wise in a nation to commit interests of so delicate and momentous a kind, as those which concern its intercourse with the rest of the world, to the sole disposal of a magistrate created and circumstanced as would be a President if the United States.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 80
Categories: Separation of Powers
Date: Unknown
No man ought certainly to be a judge in his own cause, or in any cause in respect to which he has the least interest or bias.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 80
Categories: Separation of Powers
Date: Unknown
The reasonableness of the agency of the national courts in cases in which the state tribunals cannot be supposed to be impartial, speaks for itself. No man ought certainly to be a judge in his own cause, or in any cause in respect to which he has the least interest or bias.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 71
Categories: Political Leaders
Date: Unknown
When occasions present themselves in which the interests of the people are at variance with their inclinations, it is the duty of the persons whom they have appointed to be the guardians of those interests to withstand the temporary delusion in order to give them time and opportunity for more cool and sedate reflection.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 28
Categories: War
Date: Unknown
That there may happen cases in which the national government may be necessitated to resort to force cannot be denied.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 28
Categories: War
Date: Unknown
The idea of governing at all times by the simple force of law (which we have been told is the only admissible principle of republican government) has no place but in the reveries of those political doctors whose sagacity disdains the admonitions of experimental instruction.
Alexander Hamilton
Categories: Government
Date: 1788
In framing a Government for posterity as well as ourselves, we ought in those provisions which are designed to be permanent, to calculate not on temporary, but on permanent causes of expence.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 61
Categories: Human Nature
Date: Unknown
There is a contagion in example which few men have sufficient force of mind to resist.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist No. 9
Categories: Education, Government
Date: Unknown
It is impossible to read the history of the petty republics of Greece and Italy without feeling sensations of horror and disgust at the distractions with which they were continually agitated, and at the rapid succession of revolutions by which they were kept in a state of perpetual vibration between the extremes of tyranny and anarchy…great improvement…were either not known at all, or imperfectly known to the ancients
Alexander Hamilton Federalist No. 9
Categories: Republican Government
Date: Unknown
The science of politics, however, like most other sciences, has received great improvement. The efficacy of various principles is now well understood, which were either not known at all, or imperfectly known to the ancients. The regular distribution of power into distinct departments; the introduction of legislative balances and checks; the institution of courts composed of judges, holding their offices during good behaviour; the representation of the people in the legislature, by deputies of their own election; these are either wholly new discoveries, or have made their principal progress towards perfection in modern times. They are means, and powerful means, by which the excellencies of republican government may be retained, and its imperfections lessened or avoided.
Alexander Hamilton Federalist No. 78
Categories: Constitution, Justice
Date: Unknown
The complete independence of the courts of justice is peculiarly essential in a limited Constitution. By a limited Constitution, I understand one which contains certain specified exceptions to the legislative authority; such, for instance, as that it shall pass no bills of attainder, no ex-post-facto laws, and the like. Limitations of this kind can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing.
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist 6
Categories: Commerce, Republican Government
Date: Unknown
[T]here are still to be found , or designing men, who stand ready to advocate the paradox of perpetual peace between the states, though dismembered and alienated from each other. . . . The genius of republics, say they, is pacific; the spirit of commerce has a tendency to soften the manners of men, and to extinguish those inflammable humours which have so often kindled into wars. Commercial republics, like ours, will never be disposed to waste themselves in ruinous contentions with each other. They will be governed by mutual interest, and will cultivate a spirit of mutual amity and concord.
Alexander Hamilton to John Jay
Categories: Slavery
Date: March 14, 1789
The contempt we have been taught to entertain for the blacks, makes us fancy many things that are founded neither in reason nor experience; and an unwillingness to part with property of so valuable a kind will furnish a thousand arguments to show the impracticability or pernicious tendency of a scheme which requires such a sacrifice. But it should be considered, that if we do not make use of them in this way, the enemy probably will; and that the best way to counteract the temptations they will hold out will be to offer them ourselves. An essential part of the plan is to give them their freedom with their muskets. This will secure their fidelity, animate their courage, and I believe will have a good influence upon those who remain, by opening a door to their emancipation
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist 23
Categories: Arms, Power, War
Date: Unknown
The authorities essential to the common defense are these: to raise armies; to build and equip fleets; to prescribe rules for the government of both; to direct their operations’ to provide for their support. These powers ought to exist without limitation, because it is impossible to foresee or define the extent and variety of national exigencies, and the correspondent extent and variety of the means which may be necessary to satisfy them. The circumstances that endanger the safety of nations are infinite, and for this reason no constitutional shackles can wisely be imposed on the power to which the care of it is committed
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist 11
Categories: Commerce
Date: Unknown
[P]assive commerce… should thus…[compel us] to content ourselves with the first price of our commodities, and to see the profits of our trade snatched from us, to enrich our enemies and persecutors. That unequalled spirit of enterprise… an inexhaustible mine of national wealth, would be stifled and lost; and poverty and disgrace would overspread a country, which, with wisdom, might make herself the admiration and envy of the world.
Alexander Hamilton to George Washington
Categories: International Relations
Date: April, 1793
A nation has a right to manage its own concerns as it thinks fit
Alexander Hamilton To George Washington
Categories: International Relations
Date: April, 1793
Every nation ought to have a right to provide for its own happiness
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist 12
Categories: Commerce, Economy
Date: Unknown
By multiplying the means of gratification, by promoting the introduction and circulation of the precious metals, those darling objects of human avarice and enterprise, it serves to vivify and invigorate the channels of industry, and to make them flow with greater activity and copiousness. The assiduous merchant, the laborious husbandman, the active mechanic, and the industrious manufacturer,--all orders of men, look forward with eager expectation and growing alacrity to this pleasing reward of their toils
Alexander Hamilton Report on Manufacturers
Categories: Commerce, Economy
Date: December 5, 1791
To cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by multiplying the objects of enterprise, is not among the least considerable of the expedients, by which the wealth of a nation may be promoted. Even things in themselves not positively advantageous, sometimes become so, by their tendency to provoke exertion. Every new scene, which is opened to the busy nature of man to rouse and exert itself, is the addition of a new energy to the general stock of effort
Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers Federalist 1
Categories: Constitution, Constitutional Interpretation, Republican Government
Date: Unknown
I propose…The conformity of the proposed Constitution to the true principles of republican government
Alexander Hamilton
Categories: Citizenship, Liberty, Republican Government
Date: January 12, 1802
The safety of a republic depends essentially on the energy of a common national sentiment; on a uniformity of principles and habits; on the exemption of the citizens from foreign bias and prejudice; and on that love of country which will almost invariably be found to be closely connected with birth, education, and family. The opinion advanced in the Notes on Virginia is undoubtedly correct, that foreigners will generally be apt to bring with them attachments to the persons they have left behind; to the country of their nativity; and to its particular customs and manners. They will also entertain opinions on government congenial with those under which they have lived; or if they should be led hither from a preference to ours, how extremely unlikely is it that they will bring with them that temperate love of liberty, so essential to real republicanism?
Alexander Hamilton
Categories: Citizenship, Immigration
Date: January 12, 1802
Some reasonable term ought to be allowed to enable aliens to get rid of foreign and acquire American attachments; to learn the principles and imbibe the spirit of our government; and to admit of a probability at least, of their feeling a real interest in our affairs
Alexander Hamilton Federalist 9
Categories: Legislative Process, Politics and Parties
Date: Unknown
The Science of politics, however, like most other sciences, has received great improvement…The regular distribution of power into distinct departments; the introduction of legislative balances and checks; the institution of courts composed of judges holding their offices during good behavior; the representation of the people in the legislature by deputies of their own election: these are wholly new discoveries, or have made their principal progress towards perfection in modern times
Alexander Hamilton Report on Manufactures
Categories: Commerce
Date: December 5, 1771
Manufacturing establishments not only occasion a positive augmentation of the produce and revenue of the society, …they contribute essentially to rendering them greater than they could possibly be, without such establishments. These circumstances are… greater scope for the diversity of talents and dispositions which discriminate men from each other.
Alexander Hamilton Pacificus Essays
Categories: Liberty, Right of Revolution
Date: Unknown
When a nation has actually come to a resolution to throw off a yoke, under which it may have groaned, and to assert its liberties, it is justifiable and meritorious in another, to afford assistance to the one which has been oppressed, and is in the act of liberating itself; but it is not warrantable for any nation beforehand, to hold out a general invitation to insurrection and revolution, by promising to assist every people who may wish to recover their liberty, and to defend those citizens of every country who have been, or who may be, vexed for the cause of liberty; still less to commit to the generals of its armies, the discretionary power of judging when the citizens of a foreign country have been vexed for the cause of liberty by their own government.
Alexander Hamilton To George Washington
Categories: Right of Revolution
Date: May 2, 1793
It will teach as enemies the people who, refusing or renouncing liberty and equality, are desirous of preserving their prince and privileged casts, or of entering into an accommodation with them.