Alexander Hamilton quotes - page 5

The powers contained in a constitution...ought to be construed liberally in advancement of the public good. (Alexander Hamilton)
The inquiry constantly is what will please, not what will benefit the people. In such a government there can be nothing but temporary expedient, fickleness, and folly. View quote
Alexander Hamilton
A nation has a right to manage its own concerns as it thinks fit. View quote
Alexander Hamilton
Opinion, whether well or ill-founded, is the governing principle of human affairs. View quote
Alexander Hamilton
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. View quote
Alexander Hamilton
Experience is the oracle of truth; and where its responses are unequivocal, they ought to be conclusive and sacred. View quote
Alexander Hamilton
A treaty cannot be made which alters the Constitution of the country, or which infringes and express exceptions to the power of the Constitution. View quote
Alexander Hamilton
In the main it will be found that a power over a man's support (salary) is a power over his will. View quote
Alexander Hamilton
It is of the nature of war to increase the executive at the expense of the legislative authority. View quote
Alexander Hamilton
What plan for the regulation of the militia may be pursued by the national government is impossible to be foreseen... The project of disciplining all the militia of the United States is as futile as it would be injurious if it were capable of being carried into execution... Little more can reasonably be aimed at with the respect to the people at large than to have them properly armed and equipped and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year. View quote
Alexander Hamilton
A powerful, victorious ally is yet another name for master. (Alexander Hamilton)
When you assemble from your several counties in the Legislature, were every member to be guided only by the apparent interest of his county, government would be impracticable. There must be a perpetual accomodation and sacrifice of local advantage to general expediency. View quote
Alexander Hamilton
The civil jury is a valuable safeguard to liberty. View quote
Alexander Hamilton
How can you trust people who are poor and own no property? ... Inequality of property will exist as long as liberty exists. View quote
Alexander Hamilton
[V]igor of government is essential to the security of liberty. View quote
Alexander Hamilton
I should esteem it the extreme of imprudence to prolong the precarious state of our national affairs, and to expose the Union to the jeopardy of successive experiments, in the chimerical pursuit of a perfect plan. I never expect to see a perfect work from imperfect man. The result of the deliberations of all collective bodies must necessarily be a compound, as well of the errors and prejudices, as of the good sense and wisdom, of the individuals of whom they are composed. View quote
Alexander Hamilton
But as the plan of the convention aims only at a partial union or consolidation, the State governments would clearly retain all the rights of sovereignty which they before had, and which were not, by that act, EXCLUSIVELY delegated to the United States. View quote
Alexander Hamilton
There is one transcendant advantage belonging to the province of the State governments... --I mean the ordinary administration of criminal and civil justice. View quote
Alexander Hamilton
That this gentleman President John Adams ought not to be the object of the federal wish, is, with me, reduced to demonstration. His administration has already very materially disgraced and sunk the government. There are defects in his character which must inevitably continue to do this more and more. And if he is supported by the federal party, his party must in the issue fall with him. View quote
Alexander Hamilton
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. Even things in themselves not positively advantageous, sometimes become so, by their tendency to provoke exertion. Every new scene, which is opened to the busy nature of man to rouse and exert itself, is the addition of a new energy to the general stock of effort. View quote
Alexander Hamilton
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)
To model our political system upon speculations of lasting tranquility, is to calculate on the weaker springs of the human character. View quote
Alexander Hamilton
The attributes of sovereignty are now enjoyed by every state in the Union. View quote
Alexander Hamilton
The proposed Constitution, so far from implying an abolition of the State governments, makes them constituent parts of the national sovereignty, by allowing them a direct representation in the Senate, and leaves in their possession certain exclusive and very important portions of sovereign power. This fully corresponds, in every rational import of the terms, with the idea of a federal government. View quote
Alexander Hamilton
There can be no profit in the making or selling of things to be destroyed in war. Men may think that they have such profit, but in the end the profit will turn out to be a loss. View quote
Alexander Hamilton