Alexander Hamilton

The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and, however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true to fact. The people are turbulent and changing, they seldom judge or determine right.

A promise must never be broken.

Effective resistance to usurpers is possible only provided the citizens understand their rights and are disposed to defend them.

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.

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.

[E]very act of a delegated authority, contrary to the tenor of the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid. To deny this, would be to affirm, that the deputy is greater than his principal; that the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people themselves; that men acting by virtue of powers, may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.

Our countrymen have all the folly of the ass and all the passiveness of the sheep.

The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or representative constitution, is a change of men.

Those who do not industrialize become hewers of wood and hawkers of water

The militia is a voluntary force not associated or under the control of the States except when called out; [ when called into actual service] a permanent or long standing force would be entirely different in make-up and call.

The President, and government, will only control the militia when a part of them is in the actual service of the federal government, else, they are independent and not under the command of the president or the government. The states would control the militia, only when called out into the service of the state, and then the governor would be commander in chief where enumerated in the respective state constitution.

Now, mark my words. So long as we are a young and virtuous people, this instument will bind us together in mutual interests, mutual welfare, and mutual happiness. But when we become old and corrupt, it will bind no longer.

That instability is inherent in the nature of popular governments, I think very disputable … A representative democracy, where the right of election is well secured and regulated & the exercise of the legislature, executive, and judiciary authorities, is vested in select persons, chosen really and not nominally by the people, will in my opinion be most likely to be happy, regular and durable.

This process of election affords a moral certainty that the office of President will seldom fall to the lot of any many who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.

Experience is the oracle of truth; and where its responses are unequivocal, they ought to be conclusive and sacred.

There is no position which depends on clearer principles than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid.

When a government betrays the people by amassing too much power and becoming tyrannical, the people have no choice but to exercise their original right of self-defense — to fight the government.

To all general purposes we have uniformly been one people each individual citizen everywhere enjoying the same national rights, privileges, and protection.

Divide et impera must be the motto of every nation that either hates or fears us.

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.

It is one thing to be subordinate to the laws, and another [for the Executive] to be dependent on the legislative body. The first comports with, the last violates, the fundamental principles of good government; and, whatever may be the forms of the Constitution, unites all power in the same hands.