Quote

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.

Alexander Hamilton

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Alexander Hamilton
Safety
Committed
Infinite
Circumstances
Endanger
Nations
Shackles
Power
Wisely
Care
Imposed
Reason
Constitutional

More quotes by Alexander Hamilton

Image
The passions of a revolution are apt to hurry even good men into excesses.
Alexander Hamilton
Image
[H]owever weak our country may be, I hope we shall never sacrifice our liberties.
Alexander Hamilton
Image
To presume a want of motives for such contests . . . would be to forget that men are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious.
Alexander Hamilton
Image
The reasonableness of the agency of the national courts in cases in which the state tribunals cannot be supposed to be impartial, speaks for itself. No man ought certainly to be a judge in his own cause, or in any cause in respect to which he has the least interest or bias.
Alexander Hamilton
Image
The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself and can never be erased.
Alexander Hamilton
Image
Would they not fear that citizens not less tenacious than conscious of their rights would flock from the remotest extremes of their respective states to the places of election, to overthrow their tyrants, and to substitute men who would be disposed to avenge the violated majesty of the people?
Alexander Hamilton
Image
The great leading objects of the federal government, in which revenue is concerned, are to maintain domestic peace, and provide for the common defense.
Alexander Hamilton
Image
A government ought to contain in itself every power requisite to the full accomplishment of the objects committed to its care, and to the complete execution of the trusts for which it is responsible, free from every other control but a regard to the public good and to the sense of the people.
Alexander Hamilton
Image
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.
Alexander Hamilton
Image
It will be well to advert to the proportion between the objects that will require a federal provision in respect to revenue and those which will require a state provision. We shall discover that the former are altogether unlimited and that the latter are circumscribed within very moderate bounds.
Alexander Hamilton
Image
Though a wide ocean separates the United States from Europe, yet there are various considerations that warn us against an excess of confidence or security.
Alexander Hamilton
Image
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.
Alexander Hamilton
Image
To model our political system upon speculations of lasting tranquility, is to calculate on the weaker springs of the human character.
Alexander Hamilton
Image
How can you trust people who are poor and own no property? ... Inequality of property will exist as long as liberty exists.
Alexander Hamilton
Image
The superiority...enjoyed by nations that have...perfected a branch of industry, constitutes a...formidable obstacle.
Alexander Hamilton
Image
It is astonishing that so simple a truth should ever have had an adversary and it is one among a multitude of proofs, how apt a spirit of ill-informed jealousy, or of too great abstraction and refinement is to lead men astray from the plainest paths of reason and conviction.
Alexander Hamilton
Image
I expect we shall be told, that the Militia of the country is its natural bulwark, and would be at all times equal to the national defence...The facts, which from our own experience forbid a reliance of this kind, are too recent to permit us to be the dupes of such a suggestion.
Alexander Hamilton
Image
The idea of restraining the legislative authority, in the means of providing for the national defense, is one of those refinements which owe their origin to a zeal for liberty more ardent than enlightened.
Alexander Hamilton
Image
Take mankind in general, they are vicious-their passions may be operated upon.
Alexander Hamilton
Image
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.
Alexander Hamilton