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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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More quotes by 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.
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No man in his senses can hesitate in choosing to be free, rather than a slave.
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[Imeachable conduct is] misconduct by public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust.
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In the general course of human nature, A power over a man's subsistence amounts to a power over his will.
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[T]he present Constitution is the standard to which we are to cling. Under its banners, bona fide must we combat our political foes - rejecting all changes but through the channel itself provides for amendments.
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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 individual of the community at large has an equal right to the protection of government.
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The obscurity is much oftener in the passions and prejudices of the reasoner than in the subject.
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To attach full confidence to an institution of this nature, it appears to be an essential ingredient in its structure, that it shall be under private and not a public direction-under the guidance of individual interest, not of public policy which, would be . . . liable to being too much influenced by public necessity.
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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.
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As to religion a moderate stock will satisfy me. She must believe in god and hate a saint.
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Whoever attentively considers the different departments of power must perceive, that, in a government in which they are separated from each other, the judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them.
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To attempt to enumerate the complicated variety of mischiefs in the whole system of the social economy, which proceed from a neglect of the maxims that uphold public credit, and justify the solicitude manifested by the House on this point, would be an improper intrusion on their time and patience.
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If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify.
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And it proves, in the last place, that liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone, but would have everything to fear from its union with either of the other departments.
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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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[S]ound policy condemns the practice of accumulating debts.
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It will be forgotten, on the one hand, that jealousy is the usual concomitant of violent love, and that the noble enthusiasm of liberty is too apt to be infected with a spirit of narrow and illiberal distrust. On the other hand, it will be equally forgotten, that the vigour of government is essential to the security of liberty.
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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?
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The civil jury is a valuable safeguard to liberty.
Alexander Hamilton