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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.

Alexander Hamilton

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Happy will it be for ourselves, and most honorable for human nature, if we have wisdom and virtue enough to set so glorious an example to mankind!
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The principal purposes to be answered by union are these the common defense of the members the preservation of the public peace as well against internal convulsions as external attacks the regulation of commerce with other nations and between the States the superintendence of our intercourse, political and commercial, with foreign countries.
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To look for a continuation in harmony between a number of independent unconnected sovereignties, situated in the same neighborhood, would be to disregard the uniform course of human events, and to set at defiance the accumulated experience of ages.
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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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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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Learn to think continentally.
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Laws are a dead letter without courts to expound and define their true meaning and operation.
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States, like individuals, who observe their engagements, are respected and trusted: while the reverse is the fate of those who pursue an opposite conduct.
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Opinion, whether well or ill-founded, is the governing principle of human affairs
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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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Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
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I trust that the proposed Constitution afford a genuine specimen of representative government and republican government and that it will answer, in an eminent degree, all the beneficial purposes of society.
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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.
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Constitutions should consist only of general provisions the reason is that they must necessarily be permanent, and that they cannot calculate for the possible change of things.
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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.
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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.
Alexander Hamilton
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The powers contained in a constitution...ought to be construed liberally in advancement of the public good.
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The rights of neutrality will only be respected when they are defended by an adequate power. A nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege of being neutral.
Alexander Hamilton
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Here sir, the people govern.
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No man in his senses can hesitate in choosing to be free, rather than a slave.
Alexander Hamilton