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Its objects are CONTRACTS with foreign nations which have the force of law, but derive it from the obligations of good faith.

Alexander Hamilton

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Alexander Hamilton
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In a free government, the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights. It consists in the one case in the multiplicity of interests, and in the other in the multiplicity of sects.
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The experience of past ages may inform us, that when the circumstances of a people render them distressed, their rulers generally recur to severe, cruel, and oppressive measures. Instead of endeavoring to establish their authority in the affection of their subjects, they think they have no security but in their fear.
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The prosperity of commerce is now perceived and acknowledged by all enlightened statesmen to be the most useful as well as the most productive source of national wealth, and has accordingly become a primary object of their political cares.
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The practice of arbitrary imprisonments have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.
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In the main it will be found that a power over a man's support [salary] is a power over his will.
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The true principle of a republic is that the people should choose whom they please to govern them. Representation is imperfect, in proportion as the current of popular favor is checked. The great source of free government, popular election, should be perfectly pure, and the most unbounded liberty allowed.
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We are attempting, by this Constitution, to abolish factions, and to unite all parties for the general welfare.
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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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Industry is increased, commodities are multiplied, agriculture and manufacturers flourish: and herein consists the true wealth and prosperity of a state.
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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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Great Ambition, unchecked by principle, or the love of Glory, is an unruly Tyrant.
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The means ought to be proportioned to the end the persons from whose agency the attainment of any end is expected ought to possess the means by which it is to be attained.
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Measures which serve to abridge the free competition of foreign Articles, have a tendency to occasion an enhancement of prices.
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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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A treaty cannot be made which alters the Constitution of the country, or which infringes and express exceptions to the power of the Constitution.
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The superiority...enjoyed by nations that have...perfected a branch of industry, constitutes a...formidable obstacle.
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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.
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If mankind were to resolve to agree in no institution of government, until every part of it had been adjusted to the most exact standard of perfection, society would soon become a general scene of anarchy, and the world a desert.
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Let Americans disdain to be the instruments of European greatness! Let the thirteen States, bound together in a strict and indissoluble Union, concur in erecting one great American system, superior to the control of all transatlantic force or influence, and able to dictate the terms of the connection between the old and the new world!
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The passions of a revolution are apt to hurry even good men into excesses.
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