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Take mankind in general, they are vicious-their passions may be operated upon.

Alexander Hamilton

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Alexander Hamilton
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More quotes by Alexander Hamilton

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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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Every power vested in a government is in its nature sovereign, and includes by force of the term a right to employ all the means requisite . . . to the attainment of the ends of such power.
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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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This [a state militia system] appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist.
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Nothing could be more ill-judged than that intolerant spirit which has, at all times, characterized political parties.
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Were it not that it might require too long a discussion, it would not be difficult to demonstrate that a large and well-organized republic can scarcely lose its liberty from any other cause than that of anarchy, to which a contempt of the laws is the high-road.
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If government is in the hands of the few, they will tyrannize the many if in the hands of the many, they will tyrannize over the few. It ought to be in the hands of both, and be separated...they will need a mutual check. This check is a monarch.
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It is of the nature of war to increase the executive at the expense of the legislative authority.
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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.
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To all general purposes we have uniformly been one people each individual citizen everywhere enjoying the same national rights, privileges, and protection.
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.
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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.
Alexander Hamilton
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Our countrymen have all the folly of the ass and all the passiveness of the sheep.
Alexander Hamilton
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If the end be clearly comprehended within any of the specified powers, and if the measure have an obvious relation to that end, and is not forbidden by any particular provision of the Constitution, it may safely be deemed to come within the compass of the national authority.
Alexander Hamilton
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Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others.
Alexander Hamilton
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What bitter anguish would not the people of Athens have often escaped if their government had contained so provident a safeguard against tyranny of their own passions? Popular liberty might then have escaped the indelible reproach of decreeing to the same citizens the hemlock on one day and statutes the next.
Alexander Hamilton
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... for it is a truth, which the experience of all ages has attested, that the people are commonly most in danger when the means of insuring their rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the least suspicion.
Alexander Hamilton
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There is perhaps, nothing more likely to disturb the tranquillity of nations, than their being bound to mutual contributions for any common object that does not yield an equal and coincident benefit. For it is an observation as true, as it is trite, that there is nothing men differ so readily about as the payment of money.
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A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one.
Alexander Hamilton
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Those who have a tolerable knowledge of human nature will not stand in need of such lights.
Alexander Hamilton