Quotes from Alexander Hamilton

If we are in earnest about giving the Union energy and duration we must abandon the vain project of legislating upon the States in their collective capacities.

Unless your government is respectable, foreigners will invade your rights; and to maintain tranquillity you must be respectable; even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Government is frequently and aptly classed under two descriptions-a government of force, and a government of laws; the first is the definition of despotism-the last, of liberty.

The means ought to be proportioned to the end; the persons from whose agency the attainment of any end is expected ought to possess the means by which it is to be attained.

There is one transcendant advantage belonging to the province of the State governments . . . -I mean the ordinary administration of criminal and civil justice.

Ambition without principle never was long under the guidance of good sense.

Every nation ought to have a right to provide for its own happiness.

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.

One great error is that we suppose mankind more honest than they are.

The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.

[H]owever weak our country may be, I hope we shall never sacrifice our liberties.

Necessity, especially in politics, often occasions false hopes, false reasonings, and a system of measures, correspondingly erroneous.

The attributes of sovereignty are now enjoyed by every state in the Union.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

I think the first duty of society is justice.

Those who do not industrialize become hewers of wood and haulers of water.

The President of the United States would be liable to be impeached, tried, and upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors, removed from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law. The person of the King of Great Britain is sacred and inviolable: There is no constitutional tribunal to which he is amenable, no punishment to which he can be subjected without involving the crisis of a national revolution.

It's not tyranny we desire it's a just, limited, federal government.

We must make the best of those ills which cannot be avoided.

I believe the British government forms the best model the world ever produced…. This government has for its object public strength and individual security.

We are now forming a republican government. Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.

Man — a reasoning rather than a reasonable animal.

I never expect to see a perfect work from an imperfect man.

If the end be clearly comprehended within any of the specified powers, and if the measure have an obvious relation to that end, and is not forbidden by any particular provision of the Constitution, it may safely be deemed to come within the compass of the national authority.