Quote

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.

Alexander Hamilton

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Alexander Hamilton
Idea
Implies
Making
Penalties
Power
Punishment
Government
Essential
Sanction
Ideas
Essentials
Attended
Laws
Penalty
Law
Sanctions
Words
Disobedience

More quotes by Alexander Hamilton

Image
To attach full confidence to an institution of this nature, it appears to be an essential ingredient in its structure, that it shall be under private and not a public direction-under the guidance of individual interest, not of public policy which, would be . . . liable to being too much influenced by public necessity.
Alexander Hamilton
Image
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.
Alexander Hamilton
Image
The laws of Congress are restricted to a certain sphere, and when they depart from this sphere, they are no longer supreme or binding.
Alexander Hamilton
Image
As on the one hand, the necessity for borrowing in particular emergencies cannot be doubted, so on the other, it is equally evident that to be able to borrow upon good terms, it is essential that the credit of a nation should be well established.
Alexander Hamilton
Image
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
Image
Man is either governed by his own laws - freedom - or the laws of another - slavery. Are you willing to become slaves? Will you give up your freedom, your life and your property without a single struggle? No man has a right to rule over his fellow creatures.
Alexander Hamilton
Image
If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify.
Alexander Hamilton
Image
A fondness for power is implanted in most men, and it is natural to abuse it when acquired. This maxim, drawn from the experience of all ages, makes it the height of folly to intrust any set of men with power which is not under every possible control perpetual strides are made after more as long as there is any part withheld.
Alexander Hamilton
Image
When human laws contradict or discountenance the means, which are necessary to preserve the essential rights of any society, they defeat the proper end of all laws, and so become null and void.
Alexander Hamilton
Image
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.
Alexander Hamilton
Image
The injury which may possibly be done by defeating a few good laws, will be amply compensated by the advantage of preventing a number of bad ones.
Alexander Hamilton
Image
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.
Alexander Hamilton
Image
It is evident from the state of the country, from the habits of the people, from the experience we have had on the point itself, that it is impracticable to raise any very considerable sums by direct taxation.
Alexander Hamilton
Image
Ambition without principle never was long under the guidance of good sense.
Alexander Hamilton
Image
And it proves, in the last place, that liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone, but would have everything to fear from its union with either of the other departments.
Alexander Hamilton
Image
...that standing army can never be formidable (threatening) to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in the use of arms.
Alexander Hamilton
Image
As riches increase and accumulate in few hands . . . the tendency of things will be to depart from the republican standard.
Alexander Hamilton
Image
The changes in the human condition are uncertain and frequent. Many, on whom fortune has bestowed her favours, may trace their family to a more unprosperous station and many who are now in obscurity, may look back upon the affluence and exalted rank of their ancestors.
Alexander Hamilton
Image
A fondness for power is implanted in most men, and it is natural to abuse it when acquired.
Alexander Hamilton
Image
The practice of arbitrary imprisonments have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.
Alexander Hamilton