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[I]n framing a Government for a nation we ought, in those provisions which are designed to be permanent, to calculate not on temporary, but on permanent causes of expence.

Alexander Hamilton

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More quotes by Alexander Hamilton

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The laws of Congress are restricted to a certain sphere, and when they depart from this sphere, they are no longer supreme or binding.
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We must make the best of those ills which cannot be avoided.
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Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants.
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There is perhaps, nothing more likely to disturb the tranquillity of nations, than their being bound to mutual contributions for any common object that does not yield an equal and coincident benefit. For it is an observation as true, as it is trite, that there is nothing men differ so readily about as the payment of money.
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There can be no limitation of that authority which is to provide for the defense and protection of the community in any matter essential to the formation, direction, or support of the NATIONAL FORCES.
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A fondness for power is implanted in most men, and it is natural to abuse it when acquired. This maxim, drawn from the experience of all ages, makes it the height of folly to intrust any set of men with power which is not under every possible control perpetual strides are made after more as long as there is any part withheld.
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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 origin of all civil government, justly established, must be a voluntary compact, between the rulers and the ruled and must be liable to such limitations, as are necessary for the security of the absolute rights of the latter for what original title can any man or set of men have, to govern others, except their own consent?
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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.
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When men, engaged in unjustifiable pursuits, are aware that obstructions may come from a quarter which bare apprehension of opposition from doing what they would with eagerness rush into if no such external impediments were to be feared.
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It's not tyranny we desire it's a just, limited, federal government.
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Whoever attentively considers the different departments of power must perceive, that, in a government in which they are separated from each other, the judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them.
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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.
Alexander Hamilton
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And it proves, in the last place, that liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone, but would have everything to fear from its union with either of the other departments.
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There is something so far-fetched and so extravagant in the idea of danger to liberty from the militia that one is at a loss whether to treat it with gravity or with raillery whether to consider it as a mere trial of skill, like the paradoxes of rhetoricians as a disingenuous artifice to instil prejudices at any price or as the serious.
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It is a singular advantage of taxes on articles of consumption that they contain in their own nature a security against excess. They prescribe their own limit, which cannot be exceeded without defeating the end purposed - that is, an extension of the revenue.
Alexander Hamilton
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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.
Alexander Hamilton
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The people are turbulent and changing they seldom judge right or make good decision.
Alexander Hamilton
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I expect we shall be told, that the Militia of the country is its natural bulwark, and would be at all times equal to the national defence...The facts, which from our own experience forbid a reliance of this kind, are too recent to permit us to be the dupes of such a suggestion.
Alexander Hamilton
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Here sir, the people govern.
Alexander Hamilton