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[V]igor of government is essential to the security of liberty.

Alexander Hamilton

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Alexander Hamilton
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More quotes by Alexander Hamilton

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[W]e must extend the authority of the Union to the persons of the citizens - the only proper objects of government.
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As to Taxes, they are evidently inseparable from Government. It is impossible without them to pay the debts of the nation, to protect it from foreign danger, or to secure individuals from lawless violence and rapine.
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The State governments possess inherent advantages, which will ever give them an influence and ascendancy over the National Government, and will for ever preclude the possibility of federal encroachments. That their liberties, indeed, can be subverted by the federal head, is repugnant to every rule of political calculation.
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[A] power equal to every possible contingency must exist somewhere in the government . . .
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If it be said that the legislative body are themselves the constitutional judges of their own powers, and that the construction they put upon them is conclusive upon the other departments, it may be answered, that this cannot be the natural presumption, where it is not be collected from any particular provisions in the Constitution.
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The powers contained in a constitution...ought to be construed liberally in advancement of the public good.
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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If we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy.
Alexander Hamilton
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The inquiry constantly is what will please, not what will benefit the people. In such a government there can be nothing but temporary expedient, fickleness, and folly.
Alexander Hamilton
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If the Constitution is adopted (and it was) the Union will be in fact and in theory an association of States or a Confederacy.
Alexander Hamilton
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Can any reasonable man be well disposed toward a government which makes war and carnage the only means of supporting itself?
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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The practice of arbitrary imprisonments have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.
Alexander Hamilton
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A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.
Alexander Hamilton
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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.
Alexander Hamilton
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[S]ound policy condemns the practice of accumulating debts.
Alexander Hamilton
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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.
Alexander Hamilton
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It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny their figure deformity.
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.
Alexander Hamilton
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A fondness for power is implanted in most men, and it is natural to abuse it when acquired.
Alexander Hamilton