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I would die to preserve the law upon a solid foundation but take away liberty, and the foundation is destroyed.

Alexander Hamilton

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Alexander Hamilton
Law
Dies
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Preserve
Away
Solid
Take
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Destroyed
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Liberty

More quotes by 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.
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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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Every nation ought to have a right to provide for its own happiness.
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The superiority...enjoyed by nations that have...perfected a branch of industry, constitutes a...formidable obstacle.
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The practice of arbitrary imprisonments have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.
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The rights of neutrality will only be respected when they are defended by an adequate power. A nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege of being neutral.
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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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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.
Alexander Hamilton
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Experience is the oracle of truth and where its responses are unequivocal, they ought to be conclusive and sacred.
Alexander Hamilton
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But as the plan of the convention aims only at a partial union or consolidation, the State governments would clearly retain all the rights of sovereignty which they before had, and which were not, by that act, EXCLUSIVELY delegated to the United States.
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Laws are a dead letter without courts to expound and define their true meaning and operation.
Alexander Hamilton
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Happy will it be for ourselves, and most honorable for human nature, if we have wisdom and virtue enough to set so glorious an example to mankind!
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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.
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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.
Alexander Hamilton
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[T]hough individual oppression may now and then proceed fro the courts of justice, the general liberty of the people can never be endangered from that quarter . . .
Alexander Hamilton
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Let experience, the least fallible guide of human opinion, be appealed to for an answer to these inquiries.
Alexander Hamilton
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We must make the best of those ills which cannot be avoided.
Alexander Hamilton
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If the exercise of power of internal taxation by the Union should be discovered on experiment to be really inconvenient, the federal government may then forbear the use of it . . .
Alexander Hamilton
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It will follow that that government ought to be clothed with all powers requisite to complete execution of its trust.
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.
Alexander Hamilton