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If we are in earnest about giving the Union energy and duration we must abandon the vain project of legislating upon the States in their collective capacities.

Alexander Hamilton

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More quotes by Alexander Hamilton

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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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The circumstances that endanger the safety of nations are infinite, and for this reason no constitutional shackles can wisely be imposed on the power to which the care of it is committed.
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The local interest of a State ought in every case to give way to the interests of the Union. For when a sacrifice of one or the other is necessary, the former becomes only an apparent, partial interest, and should yield, on the principle that the smaller good ought never to oppose the greater good.
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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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[S]ound policy condemns the practice of accumulating debts.
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One great error is that we suppose mankind more honest than they are.
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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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The genius of the people will ill brook the inquisitive and peremptory spirit of excise laws.
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A feeble executive implies a feeble execution of the government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution and a government ill executed, whatever may be its theory, must be, in practice, a bad government.
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I never expect to see a perfect work from an imperfect man.
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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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[T]here is not a syllable in the plan under consideration which directly empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution.
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The citizens of America have too much discernment to be argued into anarchy. And I am much mistaken, if experience has not wrought a deep and solemn conviction in the public mind, that greater energy of government is essential to the welfare and prosperity of the community
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We must make the best of those ills which cannot be avoided.
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A nation has a right to manage its own concerns as it thinks fit.
Alexander Hamilton
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But might not his [the president's] nomination be overruled? I grant it might, yet this could only be to make place for another nomination by himself. The person ultimately appointed must be object of his preference, though perhaps not in the first degree. It is also not very probable that his nomination would often be overruled.
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If the Constitution is adopted (and it was) the Union will be in fact and in theory an association of States or a Confederacy.
Alexander Hamilton
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The propriety of a law, in a constitutional light, must always be determined by the nature of the powers upon which it is founded.
Alexander Hamilton
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Industry is increased, commodities are multiplied, agriculture and manufacturers flourish: and herein consists the true wealth and prosperity of a state.
Alexander Hamilton
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It has been observed, [that for the federal government] to coerce the States is one of the maddest projects that was ever devised.
Alexander Hamilton