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In politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.

Alexander Hamilton

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Alexander Hamilton
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No character, however upright, is a match for constantly reiterated attacks, however false.
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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.
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The Courts must declare the sense of the law and if they should be disposed to exercise will instead of judgement the consequences would be the substitution of their pleasure for that of the legislative body.
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The scheme of separate confederacies, which will always multiply the chances of ambition, will be a never failing bait to all such influential characters in the State administrations as are capable of preferring their own emolument and advancement to the public weal.
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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.
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Every nation ought to have a right to provide for its own happiness.
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The people are turbulent and changing they seldom judge right or make good decision.
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The variety of more minute interests, which will necessarily fall under the superintendence of the local administrations . . . cannot be particularized without involving a detail too tedious and uninteresting to compensate for the instruction it might afford.
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In the main it will be found that a power over a man's support [salary] is a power over his will.
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A government, the constitution of which renders it unfit to be trusted with all the powers which a free people ought to delegate to any government, would be an unsafe and improper depositary of the NATIONAL INTERESTS.
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Take mankind as they are, and what are they governed by? Their passions.
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It is just observation that the people commonly intend the Public Good.
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[S]ound policy condemns the practice of accumulating debts.
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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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In all very numerous assemblies, of whatever character composed, passion never fails to wrest the sceptre from reason. Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.
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As the duties of superintending the national defense and of securing the public peace against foreign or domestic violence involve a provision for casualties and dangers to which no possible limits can be assigned, the power of making that provision ought to know no other bounds than the exigencies of the nation and the resources of the community.
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No man in his senses can hesitate in choosing to be free, rather than a slave.
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To presume a want of motives for such contests . . . would be to forget that men are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious.
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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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The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.
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