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The laws of certain states . . . give an ownership in the service of Negroes as personal property . . . . But being men, by the laws of God and nature, they were capable of acquiring liberty - and when the captor in war . . . thought fit to give them liberty, the gift was not only valid, but irrevocable.

Alexander Hamilton

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More quotes by Alexander Hamilton

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Every nation ought to have a right to provide for its own happiness.
Alexander Hamilton
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The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or representative constitution, is a change of men.
Alexander Hamilton
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When a government betrays the people by amassing too much power and becoming tyrannical, the people have no choice but to exercise their original right of self-defense — to fight the government.
Alexander Hamilton
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If there are such things as political axioms, the propriety of the judicial power of a government being co-extensive with its legislative, may be ranked among the number.
Alexander Hamilton
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[V]igor of government is essential to the security of liberty.
Alexander Hamilton
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Nobody expects to trust his body overmuch after the age of fifty.
Alexander Hamilton
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As to religion a moderate stock will satisfy me. She must believe in god and hate a saint.
Alexander Hamilton
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The principal purposes to be answered by union are these the common defense of the members the preservation of the public peace as well against internal convulsions as external attacks the regulation of commerce with other nations and between the States the superintendence of our intercourse, political and commercial, with foreign countries.
Alexander Hamilton
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It will be well to advert to the proportion between the objects that will require a federal provision in respect to revenue and those which will require a state provision. We shall discover that the former are altogether unlimited and that the latter are circumscribed within very moderate bounds.
Alexander Hamilton
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Experience teaches, that men are often so much governed by what they are accustomed to see and practice, that the simplest and most obvious improvements . . . are adopted with hesitation, reluctance, and slow gradations.
Alexander Hamilton
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Some reasonable term ought to be allowed to enable aliens to get rid of foreign and acquire American attachments to learn the principles and imbibe the spirit of our government and to admit of a probability at least, of their feeling a real interest in our affairs.
Alexander Hamilton
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But might not his [the president's] nomination be overruled? I grant it might, yet this could only be to make place for another nomination by himself. The person ultimately appointed must be object of his preference, though perhaps not in the first degree. It is also not very probable that his nomination would often be overruled.
Alexander Hamilton
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There are men who could neither be distressed nor won into a sacrifice of their duty but this stern virtue is the growth of few soils: And in the main it will be found, that a power over a man's support is a power over his will.
Alexander Hamilton
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The loss of liberty to a generous mind is worse than death.
Alexander Hamilton
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In testimony of their Respect For The Patriot of incorruptible Integrity, The Soldier of approved Valour The Statesman of consummate Wisdom Whose Talents and Virtues will be admired By Grateful Posterity Long after this Marble shall have mouldered into Dust.
Alexander Hamilton
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When men, engaged in unjustifiable pursuits, are aware that obstructions may come from a quarter which bare apprehension of opposition from doing what they would with eagerness rush into if no such external impediments were to be feared.
Alexander Hamilton
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Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants.
Alexander Hamilton
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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.
Alexander Hamilton
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I expect we shall be told, that the Militia of the country is its natural bulwark, and would be at all times equal to the national defence...The facts, which from our own experience forbid a reliance of this kind, are too recent to permit us to be the dupes of such a suggestion.
Alexander Hamilton
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Those who do not industrialize become hewers of wood and hawkers of water
Alexander Hamilton