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[W]e must extend the authority of the Union to the persons of the citizens - the only proper objects of government.

Alexander Hamilton

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Alexander Hamilton
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Government is frequently and aptly classed under two descriptions-a government of force, and a government of laws the first is the definition of despotism-the last, of liberty.
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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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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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Government implies the power of making laws. It is essential to the idea of a law, that it be attended with a sanction or, in other words, a penalty or punishment for disobedience.
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The honor of a nation is its life. Deliberately to abandon it is to commit an act of political suicide.
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A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one.
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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.
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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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Allow a government to decline paying its debts and you overthrow all public morality-you unhinge all the principles that preserve the limits of free constitutions. Nothing can more affect national prosperity than a constant and systematic attention to extinguish the present debt and to avoid as much as possibly the incurring of any new debt.
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The Spirit of Enterprise, which characterizes the commercial part of America, has left no occasion of displaying itself unimproved. It is not at all probable that this unbridled spirit would pay much respect to those regulations of trade by which particular States might endeavor to secure exclusive benefits to their own citizens.
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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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A habit of labor in the people is as essential to the health and rigor of their minds and bodies as it is conducive to the welfare of the state.
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A struggle for liberty is in itself respectable and glorious. . . . When conducted with magnanimity, justice and humanity, it ought to command the admiration of every friend to human nature. But if sullied by crimes and extravagancies, it loses its respectability.
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A garden, you know, is a very usual refuge of a disappointed politician. Accordingly, I have purchased a few acres about nine miles from town, have built a house, and am cultivating a garden.
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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.
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A republic of this kind, able to withstand an external force, may support itself without any internal corruptions. The form of this society prevents all manner of inconveniences.
Alexander Hamilton
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Opinion, whether well or ill-founded, is the governing principle of human affairs
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Every individual of the community at large has an equal right to the protection of government.
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Laws are a dead letter without courts to expound and define their true meaning and operation.
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We must make the best of those ills which cannot be avoided.
Alexander Hamilton