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The scheme of separate confederacies, which will always multiply the chances of ambition, will be a never failing bait to all such influential characters in the State administrations as are capable of preferring their own emolument and advancement to the public weal.

Alexander Hamilton

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Common interest may always be reckoned upon as the surest bond of sympathy.
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In the main it will be found that a power over a man's support [salary] is a power over his will.
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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.
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A LAW, by the very meaning of the term, includes supremacy. It is a rule which those to whom it is prescribed are bound to observe. This results from every political association.
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The variety of more minute interests, which will necessarily fall under the superintendence of the local administrations . . . cannot be particularized without involving a detail too tedious and uninteresting to compensate for the instruction it might afford.
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The fabric of American empire ought to rest on the solid basis of THE CONSENT OF THE PEOPLE. The streams of national power ought to flow from that pure, original fountain of all legitimate authority.
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Measures which serve to abridge the free competition of foreign Articles, have a tendency to occasion an enhancement of prices.
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Hence, in a state of nature, no man had any moral power to deprive another of his life, limbs, property, or liberty nor the least authority to command or exact obedience from him, except that which arose from the ties of consanguinity.
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The law... dictated by God Himself is, of course, superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times. No human laws are of any validity if contrary to this.
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A treaty cannot be made which alters the Constitution of the country, or which infringes and express exceptions to the power of the Constitution.
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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 same state of the passions which fits the multitude, who have not a sufficient stock of reason and knowledge to guide them, for opposition to tyranny and oppression, very naturally leads them to a contempt and disregard of all authority.
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The art of reading is to skip judiciously.
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You should not have taken advantage of my sensibility to steal into my affections without my consent.
Alexander Hamilton
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[W]ar is a question, under our constitution, not of Executive, but of Legislative cognizance. It belongs to Congress to say whether the Nation shall of choice dismiss the olive branch and unfurl the banners of War.
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The State governments possess inherent advantages, which will ever give them an influence and ascendancy over the National Government, and will for ever preclude the possibility of federal encroachments. That their liberties, indeed, can be subverted by the federal head, is repugnant to every rule of political calculation.
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[In the event of war, Americans would] resort for repose and security to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political rights. To be more safe they, at length, become willing to run the risk of being less free.
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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.
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A fondness for power is implanted in most men, and it is natural to abuse it when acquired.
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To model our political system upon speculations of lasting tranquility, is to calculate on the weaker springs of the human character.
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