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Opinion, whether well or ill-founded, is the governing principle of human affairs

Alexander Hamilton

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A powerful, victorious ally is yet another name for master.
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To cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by multiplying the objects of enterprise, is not among the least considerable of the expedients, by which the wealth of a nation may be promoted.
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An over-scrupulous jealousy of danger to the rights of the people, which is more commonly the fault of the head than of the heart, will be represented as mere pretense and artifice, the stale bait for popularity at the expense of the public good.
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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.
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The Courts must declare the sense of the law and if they should be disposed to exercise will instead of judgement the consequences would be the substitution of their pleasure for that of the legislative body.
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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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Here sir, the people govern.
Alexander Hamilton
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The praise of a civilized world is justly due to Christianity—war, by the influence of the humane principles of that religion, has been stripped of half its horrors. The French renounce Christianity, and they relapse into barbarism—war resumes the same hideous and savage form which it wore in the ages of Gothic and Roman violence.
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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.
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To presume a want of motives for such contests . . . would be to forget that men are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious.
Alexander Hamilton
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It will follow that that government ought to be clothed with all powers requisite to complete execution of its trust.
Alexander Hamilton
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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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Wherever indeed a right of property is infringed for the general good, if the nature of the case admits of compensation, it ought to be made but if compensation be impracticable, that impracticability ought to be an obstacle to a clearly essential reform.
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The attributes of sovereignty are now enjoyed by every state in the Union.
Alexander Hamilton
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Law is defined to be a rule of action but how can that be a rule, which is little known and less fixed?
Alexander Hamilton
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Such a wife as I want... must be young, handsome I lay most stress upon a good shape, sensible a little learning will do, well-bread, chaste, and tender. As to religion, a moderate stock will satisfy me. She must believe in God and hate a saint.
Alexander Hamilton
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The inhabitants of territories, often the theatre of war, are unavoidably subject to frequent infringements on their rights, which serve to weaken their sense of those rights and by degrees, the people are brought to consider the soldiery not only as their protectors but as their superiors.
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.
Alexander Hamilton
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I confess I am at a loss to discover what temptation the persons entrusted with the administration of the general government could ever feel to divest the States of the authorities of that description. The regulation of the mere domestic police of a State appears to me to hold out slender allurements to ambition.
Alexander Hamilton
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Experience teaches, that men are often so much governed by what they are accustomed to see and practice, that the simplest and most obvious improvements . . . are adopted with hesitation, reluctance, and slow gradations.
Alexander Hamilton