Top 250 Alexander Hamilton Quotes (2024 Update)
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201. “The treaties of the United States, to have any force at all, must be considered as part of the law of the land.”

— Alexander Hamilton

202. “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

203. “It is presumable that no country will be able to borrow of foreigners upon better terms than the United States, because none can, perhaps, afford so good security.”

— Alexander Hamilton

204. “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.”

— Alexander Hamilton

205. “But being ruined by taxes is not the worst you have to fear. What security would you have for your lives? How can any of you be sure you would have the free enjoyment of your religion long? Would you put your religion in the power of any set of men living? Remember civil and religious liberty always go together: if the foundation of the one be sapped, the other will fail of course.”

— Alexander Hamilton

206. “Here sir, the people govern.”

— Alexander Hamilton

207. “If we must have an enemy at the head of government, let it be one whom we can oppose, and for whom we are not responsible.”

— Alexander Hamilton

208. “Government implies the power of making laws. It is essential to the idea of a law, that it be attended with a sanction; or, in other words, a penalty or punishment for disobedience. If there be no penalty annexed to disobedience, the resolutions or commands which pretend to be laws will, in fact, amount to nothing more than advice or recommendation.”

— Alexander Hamilton

209. “It is the advertiser who provides the paper for the subscriber. It is not to be disputed, that the publisher of a newspaper in this country, without a very exhaustive advertising support, would receive less reward for his labor than the humblest mechanic.”

— Alexander Hamilton

210. “That there may happen cases in which the national government may be necessitated to resort to force, cannot be denied.”

— Alexander Hamilton

211. “It is of the nature of war to increase the executive at the expense of the legislative authority.”

— Alexander Hamilton

212. “Little more can reasonably be aimed at with respect to the people at large than to have them properly armed.”

— Alexander Hamilton

213. “It will follow that that government ought to be clothed with all powers requisite to complete execution of its trust.”

— Alexander Hamilton

214. “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

215. “Civil liberty is only natural liberty, modified and secured by the sanctions of civil society.”

— Alexander Hamilton

216. “The Achaeans soon experienced, as often happens, that a victorious and powerful ally is but another name for a master.”

— Alexander Hamilton

217. “The awful discretion, which a court of impeachments must necessarily have, to doom to honor or to infamy the most confidential and the most distinguished characters of the community, forbids the commitment of the trust to a small number of persons.”

— Alexander Hamilton

218. “The valuable improvements made by the American constitutions on the popular models, both ancient and modern, cannot certainly be too much admired; but it would be an unwarrantable partiality, to contend that they have as effectually obviated the danger on this side, as was wished and expected.”

— Alexander Hamilton

219. “There is at this present juncture, a certain fermentation of mind, a certain activity of speculation and enterprise which if properly directed may be made subservient to useful purposes; but which if left entirely to itself, may be attended with pernicious effects.”

— Alexander Hamilton

220. “The institution of delegated power implies that there is a portion of virtue and honor among mankind which may be a reasonable foundation of confidence.”

— Alexander Hamilton

221. “A nation has a right to manage its own concerns as it thinks fit.”

— Alexander Hamilton

222. “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.”

— Alexander Hamilton

223. “The same rule that teaches the propriety of a partition between the various branches of power, teaches us likewise that this partition ought to be so contrived as to render the one independent of the other.”

— Alexander Hamilton

224. “The idea of restraining the legislative authority, in the means of providing for the national defense, is one of those refinements which owe their origin to a zeal for liberty more ardent than enlightened.”

— Alexander Hamilton

225. “Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.”

— Alexander Hamilton

226. “There can be no limitation of that authority which is to provide for the defense and protection of the community in any matter essential to the formation, direction, or support of the NATIONAL FORCES.”

— Alexander Hamilton

227. “The Convention probably foresaw what it has been a principal aim of these papers to inculcate that the danger which most threatens our political welfare is, that the state governments will finally sap the foundations of the Union.”

— Alexander Hamilton

228. “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

229. “The reasonableness of the agency of the national courts in cases in which the state tribunals cannot be supposed to be impartial, speaks for itself. No man ought certainly to be a judge in his own cause, or in any cause in respect to which he has the least interest or bias.”

— Alexander Hamilton

230. “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

231. “Nothing is more natural to men in office, than to look with peculiar deference towards that authority to which they owe their official existence.”

— Alexander Hamilton

232. “Those who have a tolerable knowledge of human nature will not stand in need of such lights.”

— Alexander Hamilton

233. “I inquired for Mrs. Reynolds and was shewn up stairs, at the head of which she met me and conducted me into a bed room. I took the bill out of my pocket and gave it to her. Some conversation ensued from which it was quickly apparent that other than pecuniary consolation would be acceptable.”

— Alexander Hamilton

234. “If the sword of oppression be permitted to lop off one limb without opposition, reiterated strokes will soon dismember the whole body.”

— Alexander Hamilton

235. “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

236. “Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct.”

— Alexander Hamilton

237. “It is a singular capriciousness of the human mind, that after all the admonitions we have had from experience on this head, there should still be found men, who object to the new constitution for deviating from a principle which has been found the bane of the old.”

— Alexander Hamilton

238. “Happy it is when the interest which the government has in the preservation of its own power, coincides with a proper distribution of the public burthens, and tends to guard the least wealthy part of the community from oppression!”

— Alexander Hamilton

239. “Wherever indeed a right of property is infringed for the general good, if the nature of the case admits of compensation, it ought to be made; but if compensation be impracticable, that impracticability ought to be an obstacle to a clearly essential reform.”

— Alexander Hamilton

240. “The natural effect of low interest is to increase trade and industry; because undertakings of every kind can be prosecuted with greater advantage.”

— Alexander Hamilton

241. “It has been frequently remarked, that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country to decide, by their conduct and example, the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on accident and force.”

— Alexander Hamilton

242. “To answer the purpose of the adversaries of the Constitution, they ought to prove, not merely that particular provisions in it are not the best, which might have been imagined; but that the plan upon the whole is bad and pernicious.”

— Alexander Hamilton

243. “Measures which serve to abridge the free competition of foreign Articles, have a tendency to occasion an enhancement of prices.”

— Alexander Hamilton

244. “It is just observation that the people commonly intend the Public Good.”

— Alexander Hamilton

245. “The injury which may possibly be done by defeating a few good laws, will be amply compensated by the advantage of preventing a number of bad ones.”

— Alexander Hamilton

246. “While property continues to be pretty equally divided, and a considerable share of information pervades the community; the tendency of the people’s suffrages, will be to elevate merit even from obscurity. As riches increase and accumulate in few hands; as luxury prevails in society; virtue will be in a greater degree considered as only a graceful appendage of wealth, and the tendency of things will be to depart from the republican standard.”

— Alexander Hamilton

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

— Alexander Hamilton

248. “A republic of this kind, able to withstand an external force, may support itself without any internal corruptions. The form of this society prevents all manner of inconveniences.”

— Alexander Hamilton

249. “War, like most other things, is a science to be acquired and perfected by diligence, by perserverance, by time, and by practice.”

— Alexander Hamilton

250. “A government ought to contain in itself every power requisite to the full accomplishment of the objects committed to its care, and to the complete execution of the trusts for which it is responsible, free from every other control but a regard to the public good and to the sense of the people.”

— Alexander Hamilton