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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.

Alexander Hamilton

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Alexander Hamilton
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More quotes by Alexander Hamilton

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Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. To be more safe, [nations] at length become willing to run the risk of being less free.
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Civil liberty is only natural liberty, modified and secured by the sanctions of civil society. It is not a thing, in its own nature, precarious and dependent on human will and caprice but it is conformable to the constitution of man, as well as necessary to the well-being of society.
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...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.
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A fondness for power is implanted in most men, and it is natural to abuse it when acquired.
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Money is, with propriety, considered as the vital principle of the body politic as that which sustains its life and motion, and enables it to perform its most essential functions.
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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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But might not his [the president's] nomination be overruled? I grant it might, yet this could only be to make place for another nomination by himself. The person ultimately appointed must be object of his preference, though perhaps not in the first degree. It is also not very probable that his nomination would often be overruled.
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If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government.
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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.
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Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants.
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Happy will it be for ourselves, and most honorable for human nature, if we have wisdom and virtue enough to set so glorious an example to mankind!
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Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.
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It will be forgotten, on the one hand, that jealousy is the usual concomitant of violent love, and that the noble enthusiasm of liberty is too apt to be infected with a spirit of narrow and illiberal distrust. On the other hand, it will be equally forgotten, that the vigour of government is essential to the security of liberty.
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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?
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The powers contained in a constitution...ought to be construed liberally in advancement of the public good.
Alexander Hamilton
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Establish that a Government may decline a provision for its debts, though able to make it, and you overthrow all public morality, you unhinge all the principles that must preserve the limits of free constitutions.
Alexander Hamilton
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War, like most other things, is a science to be acquired and perfected by diligence, by perserverance, by time, and by practice.
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It will follow that that government ought to be clothed with all powers requisite to complete execution of its trust.
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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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This power ought to be coextensive with all the possible combinations of such circumstances and ought to be under the direction of the same councils which are appointed to preside over the common defense.
Alexander Hamilton