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Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Alexander Hamilton

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Alexander Hamilton
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More quotes by 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.
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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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Effective resistance to usurpers is possible only provided the citizens understand their rights and are disposed to defend them.
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A struggle for liberty is in itself respectable and glorious. . . . When conducted with magnanimity, justice and humanity, it ought to command the admiration of every friend to human nature. But if sullied by crimes and extravagancies, it loses its respectability.
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It is astonishing that so simple a truth should ever have had an adversary and it is one among a multitude of proofs, how apt a spirit of ill-informed jealousy, or of too great abstraction and refinement is to lead men astray from the plainest paths of reason and conviction.
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.
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The desire of reward is one of the strongest incentives of human conduct ... the best security for the fidelity of mankind is to make their interest coincide with their duty.
Alexander Hamilton
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I have thought it my duty to exhibit things as they are, not as they ought to be.
Alexander Hamilton
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Has it not. . . invariably been found that momentary passions, and immediate interests, have a more active and imperious control over human conduct than general or remote considerations of policy, utility and justice?
Alexander Hamilton
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The changes in the human condition are uncertain and frequent. Many, on whom fortune has bestowed her favours, may trace their family to a more unprosperous station and many who are now in obscurity, may look back upon the affluence and exalted rank of their ancestors.
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The inhabitants of territories, often the theatre of war, are unavoidably subject to frequent infringements on their rights, which serve to weaken their sense of those rights and by degrees, the people are brought to consider the soldiery not only as their protectors but as their superiors.
Alexander Hamilton
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[T]he Constitution ought to be the standard of construction for the laws, and that wherever there is an evident opposition, the laws ought to give place to the Constitution. But this doctrine is not deducible from any circumstance peculiar to the plan of convention, but from the general theory of a limited Constitution.
Alexander Hamilton
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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
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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
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The people are turbulent and changing they seldom judge right or make good decision.
Alexander Hamilton
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A fondness for power is implanted in most men, and it is natural to abuse it when acquired. This maxim, drawn from the experience of all ages, makes it the height of folly to intrust any set of men with power which is not under every possible control perpetual strides are made after more as long as there is any part withheld.
Alexander Hamilton
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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
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The institution of delegated power implies that there is a portion of virtue and honor among mankind which may be a reasonable foundation of confidence.
Alexander Hamilton
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It is the Press which has corrupted our political morals - and it is to the Press we must look for the means of our political regeneration.
Alexander Hamilton
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The natural effect of low interest is to increase trade and industry because undertakings of every kind can be prosecuted with greater advantage.
Alexander Hamilton