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To answer the purpose of the adversaries of the Constitution, they ought to prove, not merely that particular provisions in it are not the best, which might have been imagined but that the plan upon the whole is bad and pernicious.

Alexander Hamilton

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More quotes by Alexander Hamilton

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What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws.
Alexander Hamilton
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There are seasons in every country when noise and impudence pass current for worth and in popular commotions especially, the clamors of interested and factious men are often mistaken for patriotism.
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The Liberty of the press consists in the right to publish with impunity truth with good motives for justifiable ends, though reflecting on government, magistracy, or individuals.
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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 is a just observation that the people commonly intend the Public Good. This often applies to their very errors. But their good sense would despise the adulator who should pretend they always reason right about the means of promoting it.
Alexander Hamilton
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The power of creating new funds upon new objects of taxation, by its own authority, would enable the national government to borrow as far as its necessities might require.
Alexander Hamilton
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The great leading objects of the federal government, in which revenue is concerned, are to maintain domestic peace, and provide for the common defense.
Alexander Hamilton
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As on the one hand, the necessity for borrowing in particular emergencies cannot be doubted, so on the other, it is equally evident that to be able to borrow upon good terms, it is essential that the credit of a nation should be well established.
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 voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God and, however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true to fact. The people are turbulent and changing, they seldom judge or determine right.
Alexander Hamilton
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The instrument by which it [government] must act are either the AUTHORITY of the laws or FORCE. If the first be destroyed, the last must be substituted and where this becomes the ordinary instrument of government there is an end to liberty!
Alexander Hamilton
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Laws are a dead letter without courts to expound and define their true meaning and operation.
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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Now, mark my words. So long as we are a young and virtuous people, this instument will bind us together in mutual interests, mutual welfare, and mutual happiness. But when we become old and corrupt, it will bind no longer.
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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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.
Alexander Hamilton
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Men give me credit for some genius. All the genius I have lies in this when I have a subject in hand, I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. My mind becomes pervaded with it. Then the effort that I have made is what people are pleased to call the fruit of genius. It is the fruit of labor and thought.
Alexander Hamilton
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Its objects are CONTRACTS with foreign nations which have the force of law, but derive it from the obligations of good faith.
Alexander Hamilton
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There is one transcendant advantage belonging to the province of the State governments . . . -I mean the ordinary administration of criminal and civil justice.
Alexander Hamilton
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By a steady adherence to the Union we may hope, erelong, to become the arbiter of Europe in America, and to be able to incline the balance of European competitions in this part of the world as our interest may dictate.
Alexander Hamilton