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

Alexander Hamilton

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Alexander Hamilton
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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.
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These are not vague inferences . . . but they are solid conclusions drawn from the natural and necessary progress of human affairs.
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The system is the best that the present views and circumstances of the country will permit.
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Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. To be more safe, [nations] at length become willing to run the risk of being less free.
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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?
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There are seasons in every country when noise and impudence pass current for worth and in popular commotions especially, the clamors of interested and factious men are often mistaken for patriotism.
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This process of election affords a moral certainty that the office of President will seldom fall to the lot of any many who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.
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The Achaeans soon experienced, as often happens, that a victorious and powerful ally is but another name for a master.
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The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.
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The multitude . . . have not a sufficient stock of reason and knowledge to guide them. . . . It is not safe to trust to the virtue of any people.
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[W]ar is a question, under our constitution, not of Executive, but of Legislative cognizance. It belongs to Congress to say whether the Nation shall of choice dismiss the olive branch and unfurl the banners of War.
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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.
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Those who do not industrialize become hewers of wood and hawkers of water
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The superiority...enjoyed by nations that have...perfected a branch of industry, constitutes a...formidable obstacle.
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The genius of the people will ill brook the inquisitive and peremptory spirit of excise laws.
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They are not rules prescribed by the sovereign to the subject, but agreements between sovereign and sovereign.
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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
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Our countrymen have all the folly of the ass and all the passiveness of the sheep.
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To watch the progress of such endeavors is the office of a free press. To give us early alarm and put us on our guard against encroachments of power. This then is a right of utmost importance, one for which, instead of yielding it up, we ought rather to spill our blood.
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The vigour of government is essential to the security of liberty. . . . 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.
Alexander Hamilton