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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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Alexander Hamilton
Constitution
Pressing
Authority
Authorities
Exercise
Assumptions
Perhaps
Largest
Full
Constitutional
Called
Assumption
Exigencies
Power
Tyranny
Oftener
Grown
Defective

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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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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.
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The natural effect of low interest is to increase trade and industry because undertakings of every kind can be prosecuted with greater advantage.
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You should not have taken advantage of my sensibility to steal into my affections without my consent.
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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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If the exercise of power of internal taxation by the Union should be discovered on experiment to be really inconvenient, the federal government may then forbear the use of it . . .
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As riches increase and accumulate in few hands . . . the tendency of things will be to depart from the republican standard.
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[H]owever weak our country may be, I hope we shall never sacrifice our liberties.
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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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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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[V]igor of government is essential to the security of liberty.
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When occasions present themselves, in which the interests of the people are at variance with their inclinations, it is the duty of the persons whom they have appointed to be the guardians of those interests, to withstand the temporary delusion, in order to give them time and opportunity for more cool and sedate reflection.
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To cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by multiplying the objects of enterprise, is not among the least considerable of the expedients, by which the wealth of a nation may be promoted.
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A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.
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If we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy.
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[T]he Constitution ought to be the standard of construction for the laws, and that wherever there is an evident opposition, the laws ought to give place to the Constitution. But this doctrine is not deducible from any circumstance peculiar to the plan of convention, but from the general theory of a limited Constitution.
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It is far more rational to suppose that the courts were designed to be an intermediate body between the people and the legislature, in order, among other things, to keep the latter within the limits assigned to their authority.
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Nobody expects to trust his body overmuch after the age of fifty.
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Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others.
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The honor of a nation is its life. Deliberately to abandon it is to commit an act of political suicide.
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