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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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Alexander Hamilton
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More quotes by Alexander Hamilton

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Government implies the power of making laws. It is essential to the idea of a law, that it be attended with a sanction or, in other words, a penalty or punishment for disobedience.
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A powerful, victorious ally is yet another name for master.
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While the constitution continues to be read, and its principles known, the states, must, by every rational man, be considered as essential component parts of the union and therefore the idea of sacrificing the former to the latter is totally inadmissible.
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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.
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Schemes to subvert the liberties of a great community require time to mature them for execution.
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If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government.
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The idea of restraining the legislative authority, in the means of providing for the national defense, is one of those refinements which owe their origin to a zeal for liberty more ardent than enlightened.
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The experience of treaties being broken with impunity provide an afflicting lesson to mankind how little dependence is to be placed on treaties which have no other sanction than the obligations of good faith and which oppose general considerations of peace and justice to the impulse of any immediate interest and passion.
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There is at this present juncture, a certain fermentation of mind, a certain activity of speculation and enterprise which if properly directed may be made subservient to useful purposes but which if left entirely to itself, may be attended with pernicious effects.
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Establish that a Government may decline a provision for its debts, though able to make it, and you overthrow all public morality, you unhinge all the principles that must preserve the limits of free constitutions.
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There is nothing absurd or impracticable in the idea of a league or alliance between independent nations for certain defined purposes precisely stated in a treaty regulating all the details of time, place, circumstance, and quantity leaving nothing to future discretion and depending for its execution on the good faith of the parties.
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In the usual progress of things, the necessities of a nation in every stage of its existence will be found at least equal to its resources.
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A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.
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There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human nature rise above itself, in acts of bravery and heroism.
Alexander Hamilton
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The attributes of sovereignty are now enjoyed by every state in the Union.
Alexander Hamilton
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A national debt if it is not excessive will be to us a national blessing it will be powerfull cement of our union. It will also create a necessity for keeping up taxation to a degree which without being oppressive, will be a spur to industry.
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This process of election affords a moral certainty that the office of President will seldom fall to the lot of any many who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.
Alexander Hamilton
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The increasing remoteness of consanguinity is everyday diminishing the force of the family compact between France and Spain. And politicians have ever with great reason considered the ties of blood as feeble and precarious links of political connection.
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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.
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For my part, I sincerely esteem the Constitution, a system which without the finger of God, never could have been suggested and agreed upon by such a diversity of interests.
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