Alexander Hamilton Quotes

278 Sourced Quotes

Nothing could be more ill-judged than that intolerant spirit which has, at all times, characterized political parties.

Alexander Hamilton
The law... dictated by God Himself is, of course, superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times. No human laws are of any validity if contrary to this.

Alexander Hamilton
The [president] has no particle of spiritual jurisdiction....

Alexander Hamilton
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
The desire of reward is one of the strongest incentives of human conduct;... the best security for the fidelity of mankind is to make their interest coincide with their duty.

Alexander Hamilton
The legislatures will have better means of information. They can discover the danger at a distance; and possessing all the organs of civil power, and the confidence of the people, they can at once adopt a regular plan of opposition, in which they can combine all the resources of the community. They can readily communicate with each other in the different States, and unite their common forces for the protection of their common liberty.

Alexander Hamilton
A national debt if it is not excessive will be to us a national blessing; it will be powerfull cement of our union. It will also create a necessity for keeping up taxation to a degree which without being oppressive, will be a spur to industry;

Alexander Hamilton
In a government framed for durable liberty, not less regard must be paid to giving the magistrate a proper degree of authority, to make and execute the laws with rigour, than to guarding against encroachments upon the rights of the community. As too much power leads to despotism, too little leads to anarchy, and both eventually to the ruin of the people.

Alexander Hamilton
The Liberty of the press consists in the right to publish with impunity truth with good motives for justifiable ends, though reflecting on government, magistracy, or individuals.

Alexander Hamilton
It is impossible not to bestow the imputation of deliberate imposture and deception upon the gross pretense of a similitude between a king of Great Britain and a magistrate of the character marked out for that of the President of the United States. It is still more impossible to withhold that imputation from the rash and barefaced expedients which have been employed to give success to the attempted imposition.

Alexander Hamilton
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.

Alexander Hamilton
But though a funded debt is not in the first instance, an absolute increase of Capital, or an augmentation of real wealth; yet by serving as a New power in the operation of industry, it has within certain bounds a tendency to increase the real wealth of a Community, in like manner as money borrowed by a thrifty farmer, to be laid out in the improvement of his farm may, in the end, add to his Stock of real riches.

Alexander Hamilton
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
All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and the well-born; the other the mass of the people... turbulent and changing, they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in the Government... Nothing but a permanent body can check the imprudence of democracy.

Alexander Hamilton
In disquisitions of every kind there are certain primary truths, or first principles, upon which all subsequent reasoning must depend.

Alexander Hamilton
Responsibility, in order to be reasonable, must be limited to objects within the power of the responsible party, and in order to be effectual, must relate to operations of that power, of which a ready and proper judgment can be formed by the constituents.

Alexander Hamilton
To attempt to enumerate the complicated variety of mischiefs in the whole system of the social economy, which proceed from a neglect of the maxims that uphold public credit, and justify the solicitude manifested by the House on this point, would be an improper intrusion on their time and patience.

Alexander Hamilton
A share in the sovereignty of the state, which is exercised by the citizens at large, in voting at elections is one of the most important rights of the subject, and in a republic ought to stand foremost in the estimation of the law...That portion of the sovereignty, to which each individual is entitled, can never be too highly prized. It is that for which we have fought and bled...

Alexander Hamilton
The Durean is another excellent Fruit, but offensive to some Peoples Noses, for it smell very much like human Excrements, but when once tasted, the Smell vanishes.

Alexander Hamilton
Little more can reasonably be aimed at with respect to the people at large than to have them properly armed.

Alexander Hamilton
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
CREDIT supposes specific and permanent funds for the punctual payment of interest, with a moral certainty of a final redemption of the principal.

Alexander Hamilton
In this distribution of powers the wisdom of our constitution is manifested. It is the province and duty of the Executive to preserve to the Nation the blessings of peace. The Legislature alone can interrupt those blessings, by placing the Nation in a state of War.

Alexander Hamilton
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
The powers contained in a constitution...ought to be construed liberally in advancement of the public good.

Alexander Hamilton
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
To watch the progress of such endeavors is the office of a free press. To give us early alarm and put us on our guard against encroachments of power. This then is a right of utmost importance, one for which, instead of yielding it up, we ought rather to spill our blood.

Alexander Hamilton
The power of creating new funds upon new objects of taxation, by its own authority, would enable the national government to borrow as far as its necessities might require.

Alexander Hamilton
The safety of a republic depends essentially on the energy of a common national sentiment; on a uniformity of principles and habits; on the exemption of the citizens from foreign bias and prejudice; and on that love of country which will almost invariably be found to be closely connected with birth, education and family.

Alexander Hamilton
The experience of past ages may inform us, that when the circumstances of a people render them distressed, their rulers generally recur to severe, cruel, and oppressive measures. Instead of endeavoring to establish their authority in the affection of their subjects, they think they have no security but in their fear.

Alexander Hamilton