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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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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
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In a free government, the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights. It consists in the one case in the multiplicity of interests, and in the other in the multiplicity of sects.
Alexander Hamilton
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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
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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.
Alexander Hamilton
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Foreign influence is truly the Grecian horse to a republic. We cannot be too careful to exclude its influence.
Alexander Hamilton
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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
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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
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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
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It is far more rational to suppose that the courts were designed to be an intermediate body between the people and the legislature, in order, among other things, to keep the latter within the limits assigned to their authority.
Alexander Hamilton
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Allow a government to decline paying its debts and you overthrow all public morality-you unhinge all the principles that preserve the limits of free constitutions. Nothing can more affect national prosperity than a constant and systematic attention to extinguish the present debt and to avoid as much as possibly the incurring of any new debt.
Alexander Hamilton
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Its objects are CONTRACTS with foreign nations which have the force of law, but derive it from the obligations of good faith.
Alexander Hamilton
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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
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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
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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
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[Imeachable conduct is] misconduct by public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust.
Alexander Hamilton
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Civil liberty is only natural liberty, modified and secured by the sanctions of civil society.
Alexander Hamilton
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The [president] has no particle of spiritual jurisdiction. . . .
Alexander Hamilton
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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.
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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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.
Alexander Hamilton