Alexander Hamilton famous quotes

I have carefully examined the evidences of the Christian religion, and if I was sitting as a juror upon its authenticity I would unhesitatingly give my verdict in its favor. I can prove its truth as clearly as any proposition ever submitted to the mind of man.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Christian #Patriotic #Men

The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or representative constitution, is a change of men.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Men #Administration #Constitution

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

#Strong #Exercise #Rights

Those who stand for nothing fall for anything.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Peace #Good Life #War

The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Gun #People #Gun Control

A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Mistake #Women #Nervous

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

#Running #Powerful #War

In the main it will be found that a power over a man's support (salary) is a power over his will.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Power #Men #Support

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

#Government #Law #Liberty

Foreign influence is truly the Grecian horse to a republic. We cannot be too careful to exclude its influence.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Horse #Republic #Influence

It is of the nature of war to increase the executive at the expense of the legislative authority.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#War #Authority #Increase

There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human nature rise above itself, in acts of bravery and heroism.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Hero #Patriotic #Bravery

It's not tyranny we desire; it's a just, limited, federal government.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Patriotic #Government #Desire

Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Passion #Men #Justice

It has been frequently remarked, that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country to decide, by their conduct and example, 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

#Country #Reflection #Men

Constitutions should consist only of general provisions; the reason is that they must necessarily be permanent, and that they cannot calculate for the possible change of things.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Change #Constitution #Reason

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

#Government #Law #Energy

The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Power #Rights #Hands

Little more can reasonably be aimed at with respect to the people at large than to have them properly armed.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#People #Littles

[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

#Political #Constitution #Amendments

[E]very act of a delegated authority, contrary to the tenor of the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid. To deny this, would be to affirm, that the deputy is greater than his principal; that the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people themselves; that men acting by virtue of powers, may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Men #People #Acting

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

#Real #Hands #Luxury

Men give me credit for some genius. All the genius I have lies in this; when I have a subject in hand, I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. My mind becomes pervaded with it. Then the effort that I have made is what people are pleased to call the fruit of genius. It is the fruit of labor and thought.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Lying #Science #Night

Give all the power to the many, they will oppress the few. Give all the power to the few, they will oppress the many.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Giving

Hence, in a state of nature, no man had any moral power to deprive another of his life, limbs, property, or liberty; nor the least authority to command or exact obedience from him, except that which arose from the ties of consanguinity.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Men #Ties #Liberty

Industry is increased, commodities are multiplied, agriculture and manufacturers flourish: and herein consists the true wealth and prosperity of a state.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Agriculture #Wealth #Prosperity

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

#People #Fabric #Empires

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.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Wise #Men #Rights

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

#Government #Perfect #Liberty

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

#Fate #Opposites #Engagement

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

#Government #Practice #Phrases

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

#Excess #Taxation #Limits

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

#Sacrifice #Men #Ideas

A promise must never be broken.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Trust #Integrity #Commitment

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

#Government #People #Use

If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Government #Self #People

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

#Rights #Government #Unions

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

#Government #Age #Constitution

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

#Character #Men #Sound

Here sir, the people govern.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#People

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

#Government #Giving #Political

No man in his senses can hesitate in choosing to be free, rather than a slave.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Men #Liberty #Slave

I have a tender reliance on the mercy of the Almighty, through the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am a sinner. I look to Him for mercy; pray for me.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Jesus #Looks #Merit

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

#Mind #May #Wealth

The first duty of society is justice.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Justice #Firsts #Duty

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

#Sacrifice #Government #Would Be

People sometimes attribute my success to my genius; all the genius I know anything about is hard work.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Inspirational #Hard Work #People

There is no position which depends on clearer principles than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Principles #Void #Constitution

Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Men #Agency #Political

When the sword is once drawn, the passions of men observe no bounds of moderation.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Passion #Men #Moderation

I never expect to see a perfect work from an imperfect man.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Work #Men #Perfect

A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Blessing #Conceited #Political

Man is a reasoning rather than a reasonable animal.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Animal #Men #Humanity

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

#Fire #Absurd #Aim

For my part, I sincerely esteem the Constitution, a system which without the finger of God, never could have been suggested and agreed upon by such a diversity of interests.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#4th Of July #Diversity #Constitution

A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Voting #Politics #American Revolution

Men are rather reasoning than reasonable animals for the most part governed by the impulse of passion.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Passion #Animal #Men

It may safely be received as an axiom in our political system, that the state governments will in all possible contingencies afford complete security against invasions of the public liberty by the national authority.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Government #Political #Liberty

Now, mark my words. So long as we are a young and virtuous people, this instument will bind us together in mutual interests, mutual welfare, and mutual happiness. But when we become old and corrupt, it will bind no longer.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Long #People #Together

We must make the best of those ills which cannot be avoided.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Adaptation

[H]owever weak our country may be, I hope we shall never sacrifice our liberties.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Country #Freedom #Sacrifice

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

#Greatness #Together #Connections

Learn to think continentally.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Education #Thinking

As riches increase and accumulate in few hands . . . the tendency of things will be to depart from the republican standard.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Hands #Political #Riches

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

#Wise #Men #Heaven

Unless your government is respectable, foreigners will invade your rights; and to maintain tranquillity you must be respectable; even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Strong #Rights #Government

Hard words are very rarely useful. Real firmness is good for every thing. Strut is good for nothing.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Real #Firmness

I would die to preserve the law upon a solid foundation; but take away liberty, and the foundation is destroyed.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Law #Liberty #Foundation

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.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Peace #Powerful #War

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

#Sacrifice #Men #Support

Let experience, the least fallible guide of human opinion, be appealed to for an answer to these inquiries.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Public Opinion #Inquiry #Answers

The civil jury is a valuable safeguard to liberty.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Liberty #Valuable #Jury

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

#Men #Careers #Tyrants

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

#Powerful #Rights #Government

[If you understood the natural rights of mankind,] [y]ou 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

#Rights #Race #People

A fondness for power is implanted in most men, and it is natural to abuse it when acquired.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Men #Abuse #Human Nature

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

#Government #Taxation #Debt

Experience is the oracle of truth; and where its responses are unequivocal, they ought to be conclusive and sacred.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Oracles #Sacred #Unequivocal

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.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Country #Safety #Energy

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

#Rights #Government #Political

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

#Law #Government #Hands

The only constitutional exception to the power of making treaties is, that it shall not change the Constitution.… On natural principles, a treaty, which should manifestly betray or sacrifice primary interests of the state, would be null.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Sacrifice #Principles #Would Be

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

#Independent #Branches #Separation

To all general purposes we have uniformly been one people each individual citizen everywhere enjoying the same national rights, privileges, and protection.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Rights #People #Citizens

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

#House #Public Opinion #Body

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

#Heart #Rights #People

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

#Men #Yield #Doe

Schemes to subvert the liberties of a great community require time to mature them for execution.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Community #Liberty #Execution

Divide et impera must be the motto of every nation that either hates or fears us.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Hate #Motto

It is just observation that the people commonly intend the Public Good.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#People #Good People #Observation

Such a wife as I want... must be young, handsome I lay most stress upon a good shape, sensible a little learning will do, well-bread, chaste, and tender. As to religion, a moderate stock will satisfy me. She must believe in God and hate a saint.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#Hate #Stress #Believe

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

#Rights #Weakness #Neutrality

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 .... 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

#Rights #Practice #Justice

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

#Party #Independent #Ideas

War, like most other things, is a science to be acquired and perfected by diligence, by perserverance, by time, and by practice.
-- Alexander Hamilton

#War #Practice #Perserverance

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

#Powerful #Mean #Government

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

#Community #Domestic Violence #Defense

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

#Support #Community #Essentials

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

#Defense #Common #Combination

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

#Rights #Purpose #Bills