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And as the vicissitudes of Nations beget a perpetual tendency to the accumulation of debt, there ought to be in every government a perpetual, anxious, and unceasing effort to reduce that, which at any times exists, as fast as shall be practicable consistently with integrity and good faith.

Alexander Hamilton

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More quotes by Alexander Hamilton

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The laws of certain states . . . give an ownership in the service of Negroes as personal property . . . . But being men, by the laws of God and nature, they were capable of acquiring liberty - and when the captor in war . . . thought fit to give them liberty, the gift was not only valid, but irrevocable.
Alexander Hamilton
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Our countrymen have all the folly of the ass and all the passiveness of the sheep.
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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Nothing is more natural to men in office, than to look with peculiar deference towards that authority to which they owe their official existence.
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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[If you understood the natural rights of mankind,] [y]ou would be convinced that natural liberty is a gift of the beneficent Creator to the whole human race, and that civil liberty is founded in that, and cannot be wrested from any people without the most manifest violation of justice.
Alexander Hamilton
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The safety of a republic depends essentially on the energy of a common national sentiment on a uniformity of principles and habits on the exemption of the citizens from foreign bias and prejudice and on that love of country which will almost invariably be found to be closely connected with birth, education and family.
Alexander Hamilton
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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.
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.
Alexander Hamilton
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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.
Alexander Hamilton
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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.
Alexander Hamilton
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The awful discretion, which a court of impeachments must necessarily have, to doom to honor or to infamy the most confidential and the most distinguished characters of the community, forbids the commitment of the trust to a small number of persons.
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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These powers ought to exist without limitation, because it is impossible to foresee or to define the extent and variety of national exigencies, and the correspondent extent and variety of the means which may be necessary to satisfy them.
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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[V]igor of government is essential to the security of liberty.
Alexander Hamilton
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The people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government and to reform, alter, or totally change the same when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it.
Alexander Hamilton
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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.
Alexander Hamilton
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The powers contained in a constitution...ought to be construed liberally in advancement of the public good.
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