110+ Alexander Hamilton Quotes On Education, Federalism And Tyranny

Alexander Hamilton was an American statesman and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He was an influential interpreter and promoter of the U.S. Constitution, as well as the founder of the nation's financial system, the Federalist Party, the United States Coast Guard, and The New York Post newspaper. Hamilton was the first United States Secretary of the Treasury, serving during the administration of President George Washington. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Alexander Hamilton on education, federalism, tyranny.

Top 10 Alexander Hamilton Quotes

1. I think the first duty of society is justice.
2. Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
3. There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human nature rise above itself, in acts of bravery and heroism.
4. He who stands for nothing will fall for anything.
5. It's not tyranny we desire; it's a just, limited, federal government.
6. There are seasons in every country when noise and impudence pass current for worth; and in popular commotions especially, the clamors of interested and factious men are often mistaken for patriotism.
7. People sometimes attribute my success to my genius; all the genius I know anything about is hard work.
8. Foreign influence is truly the Grecian horse to a republic. We cannot be too careful to exclude its influence.
9. 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.
10. A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government.

Alexander Hamilton Image Quotes

He who stands for nothing will fall for anything. — Alexander Hamilton

It's not tyranny we desire; it's a just, limited, federal government. — Alexander Hamilton

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

Alexander Hamilton Short Quotes

• Our countrymen have all the folly of the ass and all the passiveness of the sheep.
• We must make the best of those ills which cannot be avoided.
• And it is long since I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value.
• A promise must never be broken.
• Man is a reasoning rather than a reasonable animal.
• Those who stand for nothing fall for anything.
• I never expect to see a perfect work from imperfect man.
• No man in his senses can hesitate in choosing to be free, rather than a slave.
• Learn to think continentally.
• Laws are a dead letter without courts to expound and define their true meaning and operation.

Alexander Hamilton Quotes About Federalism

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. — 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. — Alexander Hamilton

The great leading objects of the federal government, in which revenue is concerned, are to maintain domestic peace, and provide for the common defense. — Alexander Hamilton

The scheme of separate confederacies, which will always multiply the chances of ambition, will be a never failing bait to all such influential characters in the State administrations as are capable of preferring their own emolument and advancement to the public weal. — Alexander Hamilton

After an unequivocal experience of the inefficacy of the subsisting federal government, you are called upon to deliberate on a new Constitution for the United States of America. — Alexander Hamilton

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

It has been observed, [that for the federal government] to coerce the States is one of the maddest projects that was ever devised. — Alexander Hamilton

The local interest of a State ought in every case to give way to the interests of the Union. For when a sacrifice of one or the other is necessary, the former becomes only an apparent, partial interest, and should yield, on the principle that the smaller good ought never to oppose the greater good. — Alexander Hamilton

While the constitution continues to be read, and its principles known, the states, must, by every rational man, be considered as essential component parts of the union; and therefore the idea of sacrificing the former to the latter is totally inadmissible. — Alexander Hamilton

If the exercise of power of internal taxation by the Union should be discovered on experiment to be really inconvenient, the federal government may then forbear the use of it . . . — Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton Quotes About Tyranny

A fondness for power is implanted in most men, and it is natural to abuse it when acquired. — Alexander Hamilton

Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants. — Alexander Hamilton

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

Can any reasonable man be well disposed toward a government which makes war and carnage the only means of supporting itself? — Alexander Hamilton

The practice of arbitrary imprisonments have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny. — Alexander Hamilton

Tyranny has perhaps oftener grown out of the assumptions of power, called for, on pressing exigencies, by a defective constitution, than out of the full exercise of the largest constitutional authorities. — Alexander Hamilton

The same state of the passions which fits the multitude, who have not a sufficient stock of reason and knowledge to guide them, for opposition to tyranny and oppression, very naturally leads them to a contempt and disregard of all authority. — Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton Quotes About Democracy

We are now forming a republican government. Real liberty is never found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments. — Alexander Hamilton

If we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy. — Alexander Hamilton

Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments. — Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton Quotes About Constitution

The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge right or make good decision. — Alexander Hamilton

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

Constitutions should consist only of general provisions; the reason is that they must necessarily be permanent, and that they cannot calculate for the possible change of things. — Alexander Hamilton

Civil liberty is only natural liberty, modified and secured by the sanctions of civil society. It is not a thing, in its own nature, precarious and dependent on human will and caprice; but it is conformable to the constitution of man, as well as necessary to the well-being of society. — Alexander Hamilton

What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws. — Alexander Hamilton

The truth is, after all the declamations we have heard, that the Constitution is itself, in every rational sense, and to every useful purpose, A BILL OF RIGHTS. — Alexander Hamilton

For my part, I sincerely esteem the Constitution, a system which without the finger of God, never could have been suggested and agreed upon by such a diversity of interests. — Alexander Hamilton

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

[T]here is not a syllable in the plan under consideration which directly empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution. — Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton Quotes About Government

The people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government and to reform, alter, or totally change the same when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it. — Alexander Hamilton

Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint. — Alexander Hamilton

As to Taxes, they are evidently inseparable from Government. It is impossible without them to pay the debts of the nation, to protect it from foreign danger, or to secure individuals from lawless violence and rapine. — Alexander Hamilton

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself. — Alexander Hamilton

Experience teaches, that men are often so much governed by what they are accustomed to see and practice, that the simplest and most obvious improvements . . . are adopted with hesitation, reluctance, and slow gradations. — Alexander Hamilton

In a free government, the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights. It consists in the one case in the multiplicity of interests, and in the other in the multiplicity of sects. — 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. — Alexander Hamilton

Here sir, the people govern. — Alexander Hamilton

A feeble executive implies a feeble execution of the government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government ill executed, whatever may be its theory, must be, in practice, a bad government. — Alexander Hamilton

That there may happen cases in which the national government may be necessitated to resort to force, cannot be denied. — Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton Quotes About Freedom

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

Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known and less fixed? — Alexander Hamilton

Man is either governed by his own laws - freedom - or the laws of another - slavery. Are you willing to become slaves? Will you give up your freedom, your life and your property without a single struggle? No man has a right to rule over his fellow creatures. — Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton Quotes About People

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

[If you understood the natural rights of mankind,] [y]ou would be convinced that natural liberty is a gift of the beneficent Creator to the whole human race, and that civil liberty is founded in that, and cannot be wrested from any people without the most manifest violation of justice. — Alexander Hamilton

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. — Alexander Hamilton

It is far more rational to suppose that the courts were designed to be an intermediate body between the people and the legislature, in order, among other things, to keep the latter within the limits assigned to their authority. — Alexander Hamilton

If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government. — Alexander Hamilton

The genius of the people will ill brook the inquisitive and peremptory spirit of excise laws. — Alexander Hamilton

[T]hough individual oppression may now and then proceed fro the courts of justice, the general liberty of the people can never be endangered from that quarter . . . — Alexander Hamilton

I expect we shall be told, that the Militia of the country is its natural bulwark, and would be at all times equal to the national defence...The facts, which from our own experience forbid a reliance of this kind, are too recent to permit us to be the dupes of such a suggestion. — Alexander Hamilton

It is just observation that the people commonly intend the Public Good. — Alexander Hamilton

... for it is a truth, which the experience of all ages has attested, that the people are commonly most in danger when the means of insuring their rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the least suspicion. — Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton Quotes About Nation

The honor of a nation is its life. Deliberately to abandon it is to commit an act of political suicide. — Alexander Hamilton

The love for our native land strengthens our individual and national character. — 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

A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing. — Alexander Hamilton

And as the vicissitudes of Nations beget a perpetual tendency to the accumulation of debt, there ought to be in every government a perpetual, anxious, and unceasing effort to reduce that, which at any times exists, as fast as shall be practicable consistently with integrity and good faith. — Alexander Hamilton

The fabric of American empire ought to rest on the solid basis of THE CONSENT OF THE PEOPLE. The streams of national power ought to flow from that pure, original fountain of all legitimate authority. — Alexander Hamilton

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

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

The rights of neutrality will only be respected when they are defended by an adequate power. A nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege of being neutral. — Alexander Hamilton

[W]ar is a question, under our constitution, not of Executive, but of Legislative cognizance. It belongs to Congress to say whether the Nation shall of choice dismiss the olive branch and unfurl the banners of War. — Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton Quotes About Nature

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

The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased. — Alexander Hamilton

Happy will it be for ourselves, and most honorable for human nature, if we have wisdom and virtue enough to set so glorious an example to mankind! — Alexander Hamilton

Has it not. . . invariably been found that momentary passions, and immediate interests, have a more active and imperious control over human conduct than general or remote considerations of policy, utility and justice? — 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

To presume a want of motives for such contests . . . would be to forget that men are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious. — Alexander Hamilton

Great Ambition, unchecked by principle, or the love of Glory, is an unruly Tyrant. — Alexander Hamilton

In the general course of human nature, A power over a man's subsistence amounts to a power over his will. — Alexander Hamilton

Self-preservation is the first principle of our nature. — Alexander Hamilton

Common interest may always be reckoned upon as the surest bond of sympathy. — Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton Quotes About Observe

When the sword is once drawn, the passions of men observe no bounds of moderation. — Alexander Hamilton

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government. — Alexander Hamilton

States, like individuals, who observe their engagements, are respected and trusted: while the reverse is the fate of those who pursue an opposite conduct. — Alexander Hamilton

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

It is a just observation that the people commonly intend the Public Good. This often applies to their very errors. But their good sense would despise the adulator who should pretend they always reason right about the means of promoting it. — Alexander Hamilton

A LAW, by the very meaning of the term, includes supremacy. It is a rule which those to whom it is prescribed are bound to observe. This results from every political association. — Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton Quotes About Control

Real firmness is good for anything; strut is good for nothing. — Alexander Hamilton

...that standing army can never be formidable (threatening) to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in the use of arms. — Alexander Hamilton

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. — Alexander Hamilton

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

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

Alexander Hamilton Famous Quotes And Sayings

He who stands for nothing will fall for anything. — Alexander Hamilton

It's not tyranny we desire; it's a just, limited, federal government. — Alexander Hamilton

To my utter astonishment I saw an airship descending over my cow lot. It was occupied by six of the strangest beings I ever saw. They were jabbering together, but we could not understand a word they said. — Alexander Hamilton

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

I have carefully examined the evidences of the Christian religion, and if I was sitting as a juror upon its authenticity I would unhesitatingly give my verdict in its favor. I can prove its truth as clearly as any proposition ever submitted to the mind of man. — Alexander Hamilton

I would die to preserve the law upon a solid foundation; but take away liberty, and the foundation is destroyed. — Alexander Hamilton

It is the Press which has corrupted our political morals - and it is to the Press we must look for the means of our political regeneration. — Alexander Hamilton

Remember civil and religious liberty always go together: if the foundation of the one be sapped, the other will fall of course. — Alexander Hamilton

It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity. — Alexander Hamilton

If it were to be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws - the first growing out of the last . . . . A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government. — Alexander Hamilton

Hard words are very rarely useful. Real firmness is good for every thing. Strut is good for nothing. — Alexander Hamilton

. . . [The Judicial Branch] may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments. — Alexander Hamilton

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

If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify. — Alexander Hamilton

Whoever attentively considers the different departments of power must perceive, that, in a government in which they are separated from each other, the judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them. — Alexander Hamilton

Americans rouse - be unanimous, be virtuous, be firm, exert your courage, trust in Heaven, and nobly defy the enemies both of God and man! — Alexander Hamilton

You should not have taken advantage of my sensibility to steal into my affections without my consent. — Alexander Hamilton

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

To judge from the history of mankind, we shall be compelled to conclude, that the fiery and destructive passions of war, reign in the human breast, with much more powerful sway, than the mild and beneficent sentiments of peace. — Alexander Hamilton

I have a tender reliance on the mercy of the Almighty, through the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am a sinner. I look to Him for mercy; pray for me. — Alexander Hamilton

Were it not that it might require too long a discussion, it would not be difficult to demonstrate that a large and well-organized republic can scarcely lose its liberty from any other cause than that of anarchy, to which a contempt of the laws is the high-road. — Alexander Hamilton

The true principle of a republic is that the people should choose whom they please to govern them. Representation is imperfect, in proportion as the current of popular favor is checked. The great source of free government, popular election, should be perfectly pure, and the most unbounded liberty allowed. — Alexander Hamilton

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

No person that has enjoyed the sweets of liberty can be insensible of its infinite value, or can reflect on its reverse without horror and detestation — Alexander Hamilton

There is something so far-fetched and so extravagant in the idea of danger to liberty from the militia that one is at a loss whether to treat it with gravity or with raillery; whether to consider it as a mere trial of skill, like the paradoxes of rhetoricians; as a disingenuous artifice to instil prejudices at any price; or as the serious. — Alexander Hamilton

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. — 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

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. — Alexander Hamilton

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. — Alexander Hamilton

A garden, you know, is a very usual refuge of a disappointed politician. Accordingly, I have purchased a few acres about nine miles from town, have built a house, and am cultivating a garden. — Alexander Hamilton

We are attempting, by this Constitution, to abolish factions, and to unite all parties for the general welfare. — Alexander Hamilton

Let experience, the least fallible guide of human opinion, be appealed to for an answer to these inquiries. — Alexander Hamilton

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

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

And it proves, in the last place, that liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone, but would have everything to fear from its union with either of the other departments. — Alexander Hamilton

The Spirit of Enterprise, which characterizes the commercial part of America, has left no occasion of displaying itself unimproved. It is not at all probable that this unbridled spirit would pay much respect to those regulations of trade by which particular States might endeavor to secure exclusive benefits to their own citizens. — 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. — 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

Life Lessons by Alexander Hamilton

1. Alexander Hamilton taught the importance of hard work and dedication; he rose from poverty to become a Founding Father of the United States and an influential political figure.
2. He also demonstrated the power of education; he was self-taught and educated himself on the law, economics, and politics.
3. Finally, Hamilton showed the importance of standing up for what you believe in; he was a passionate advocate for a strong central government and was unafraid to voice his opinions.