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In the general course of human nature, A power over a man's subsistence amounts to a power over his will.

Alexander Hamilton

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More quotes by Alexander Hamilton

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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.
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Learn to think continentally.
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If we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy.
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The experience of past ages may inform us, that when the circumstances of a people render them distressed, their rulers generally recur to severe, cruel, and oppressive measures. Instead of endeavoring to establish their authority in the affection of their subjects, they think they have no security but in their fear.
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Self-preservation is the first principle of our nature.
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Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.
Alexander Hamilton
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The obscurity is much oftener in the passions and prejudices of the reasoner than in the subject.
Alexander Hamilton
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CREDIT supposes specific and permanent funds for the punctual payment of interest, with a moral certainty of a final redemption of the principal.
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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
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The powers contained in a constitution...ought to be construed liberally in advancement of the public good.
Alexander Hamilton
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When human laws contradict or discountenance the means, which are necessary to preserve the essential rights of any society, they defeat the proper end of all laws, and so become null and void.
Alexander Hamilton
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[H]owever weak our country may be, I hope we shall never sacrifice our liberties.
Alexander Hamilton
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Opinion, whether well or ill-founded, is the governing principle of human affairs
Alexander Hamilton
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It is of the nature of war to increase the executive at the expense of the legislative authority.
Alexander Hamilton
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As riches increase and accumulate in few hands . . . the tendency of things will be to depart from the republican standard.
Alexander Hamilton
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There may be in every government a few choice spirits, who may act from more worthy motives. One great error is that we suppose mankind more honest than they are. Our prevailing passions are ambition and interest.
Alexander Hamilton
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The same state of the passions which fits the multitude, who have not a sufficient stock of reason and knowledge to guide them, for opposition to tyranny and oppression, very naturally leads them to a contempt and disregard of all authority.
Alexander Hamilton
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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
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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
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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