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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
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Federalist
More quotes by Alexander Hamilton
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
In this distribution of powers the wisdom of our constitution is manifested. It is the province and duty of the Executive to preserve to the Nation the blessings of peace. The Legislature alone can interrupt those blessings, by placing the Nation in a state of War.
Alexander Hamilton
The praise of a civilized world is justly due to Christianity—war, by the influence of the humane principles of that religion, has been stripped of half its horrors. The French renounce Christianity, and they relapse into barbarism—war resumes the same hideous and savage form which it wore in the ages of Gothic and Roman violence.
Alexander Hamilton
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
When a government betrays the people by amassing too much power and becoming tyrannical, the people have no choice but to exercise their original right of self-defense — to fight the government.
Alexander Hamilton
The people are turbulent and changing they seldom judge right or make good decision.
Alexander Hamilton
There can be no time, no state of things, in which Credit is not essential to a Nation.
Alexander Hamilton
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
Can any reasonable man be well disposed toward a government which makes war and carnage the only means of supporting itself?
Alexander Hamilton
And as the vicissitudes of Nations beget a perpetual tendency to the accumulation of debt, there ought to be in every government a perpetual, anxious, and unceasing effort to reduce that, which at any times exists, as fast as shall be practicable consistently with integrity and good faith.
Alexander Hamilton
Common interest may always be reckoned upon as the surest bond of sympathy.
Alexander Hamilton
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 principal purposes to be answered by union are these the common defense of the members the preservation of the public peace as well against internal convulsions as external attacks the regulation of commerce with other nations and between the States the superintendence of our intercourse, political and commercial, with foreign countries.
Alexander Hamilton
Schemes to subvert the liberties of a great community require time to mature them for execution.
Alexander Hamilton
[A] power equal to every possible contingency must exist somewhere in the government . . .
Alexander Hamilton
War, like most other things, is a science to be acquired and perfected by diligence, by perserverance, by time, and by practice.
Alexander Hamilton
Experience teaches, that men are often so much governed by what they are accustomed to see and practice, that the simplest and most obvious improvements . . . are adopted with hesitation, reluctance, and slow gradations.
Alexander Hamilton
The superiority...enjoyed by nations that have...perfected a branch of industry, constitutes a...formidable obstacle.
Alexander Hamilton
. . . [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
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