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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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More quotes by Alexander Hamilton

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In this distribution of powers the wisdom of our constitution is manifested. It is the province and duty of the Executive to preserve to the Nation the blessings of peace. The Legislature alone can interrupt those blessings, by placing the Nation in a state of War.
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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.
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Hard words are very rarely useful. Real firmness is good for every thing. Strut is good for nothing.
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Little more can reasonably be aimed at with respect to the people at large than to have them properly armed.
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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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I would die to preserve the law upon a solid foundation but take away liberty, and the foundation is destroyed.
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The obscurity is much oftener in the passions and prejudices of the reasoner than in the subject.
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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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It is a general principle of human nature, that a man will be interested in whatever he possesses, in proportion to the firmness or precariousness of the tenure by which he holds it.
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Responsibility, in order to be reasonable, must be limited to objects within the power of the responsible party, and in order to be effectual, must relate to operations of that power, of which a ready and proper judgment can be formed by the constituents.
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These are not vague inferences . . . but they are solid conclusions drawn from the natural and necessary progress of human affairs.
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The instrument by which it [government] must act are either the AUTHORITY of the laws or FORCE. If the first be destroyed, the last must be substituted and where this becomes the ordinary instrument of government there is an end to liberty!
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The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or representative constitution, is a change of men.
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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.
Alexander Hamilton
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As the duties of superintending the national defense and of securing the public peace against foreign or domestic violence involve a provision for casualties and dangers to which no possible limits can be assigned, the power of making that provision ought to know no other bounds than the exigencies of the nation and the resources of the community.
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The Achaeans soon experienced, as often happens, that a victorious and powerful ally is but another name for a master.
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I will venture to assert that no combination of designing men under heaven will be capable of making a government unpopular which is in its principles a wise and good one, and vigorous in its operations.
Alexander Hamilton
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In politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.
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To judge from the history of mankind, we shall be compelled to conclude, that the fiery and destructive passions of war, reign in the human breast, with much more powerful sway, than the mild and beneficent sentiments of peace.
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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