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... for it is a truth, which the experience of all ages has attested, that the people are commonly most in danger when the means of insuring their rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the least suspicion.

Alexander Hamilton

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Alexander Hamilton
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More quotes by Alexander Hamilton

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If it were to be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws - the first growing out of the last . . . . A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government.
Alexander Hamilton
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The Convention probably foresaw what it has been a principal aim of these papers to inculcate that the danger which most threatens our political welfare is, that the state governments will finally sap the foundations of the Union.
Alexander Hamilton
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We must make the best of those ills which cannot be avoided.
Alexander Hamilton
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As riches increase and accumulate in few hands . . . the tendency of things will be to depart from the republican standard.
Alexander Hamilton
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It may safely be received as an axiom in our political system, that the state governments will in all possible contingencies afford complete security against invasions of the public liberty by the national authority.
Alexander Hamilton
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Tyranny has perhaps oftener grown out of the assumptions of power, called for, on pressing exigencies, by a defective constitution, than out of the full exercise of the largest constitutional authorities.
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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We are now forming a republican government. Real liberty is never found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.
Alexander Hamilton
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Wise politicians will be cautious about fettering the government with restrictions that cannot be observed, because they know that every break of the fundamental laws, though dictated by necessity, impairs that sacred reverence which ought to be maintained in the breast of rulers towards the constitution of a country.
Alexander Hamilton
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Little more can reasonably be aimed at with respect to the people at large than to have them properly armed.
Alexander Hamilton
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It is just observation that the people commonly intend the Public Good.
Alexander Hamilton
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The [president] has no particle of spiritual jurisdiction. . . .
Alexander Hamilton
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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 sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself and can never be erased.
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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The love for our native land strengthens our individual and national character.
Alexander Hamilton
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There is a contagion in example which few men have sufficient force of mind to resist.
Alexander Hamilton
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The obscurity is much oftener in the passions and prejudices of the reasoner than in the subject.
Alexander Hamilton
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The circumstances that endanger the safety of nations are infinite, and for this reason no constitutional shackles can wisely be imposed on the power to which the care of it is committed.
Alexander Hamilton
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Responsibility, in order to be reasonable, must be limited to objects within the power of the responsible party, and in order to be effectual, must relate to operations of that power, of which a ready and proper judgment can be formed by the constituents.
Alexander Hamilton