Book detail: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution is presented as a focused source page for quotations connected with this book, collection, transcript, or source record.
This book is a collection of essays that were originally published in newspapers to promote the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. The authors, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, discuss the principles and structure of the new government. The essays are considered foundational texts in American political thought and legal history.
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“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.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“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.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“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.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“In the compound republic of America, the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments, and then the portion allotted to each subdivided among distinct and separate governments. Hence a double security arises to the rights of the people. The different governments will control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“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.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“We have seen that the tendency of republican governments is to an aggrandizement of the legislative at the expense of the other departments. The appeals to the people, therefore, would usually be made by the executive and judiciary departments.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“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.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“Besides the obscurity arising from the complexity of objects, and the imperfection of the human faculties, the medium through which the conceptions of men are conveyed to each other adds a fresh embarrassment.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. Even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates. The violent destruction of life and property incident to war, the continual effort and alarm attendant on a state of continual danger, will compel nations the most attached to liberty to resort for repose and security to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political rights. To be more safe, they at length become willing to run the risk of being less free.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“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.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“It equally proves, that though individual oppression may now and then proceed from the courts of justice, the general liberty of the people can never be endangered from that quarter; I mean so long as the judiciary remains truly distinct from both the legislature and the Executive. For I agree, that "there is no liberty, if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers." And it proves, in the last place, that as liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone, but would have every thing to fear from its union with either of the other departments.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“There is in every breast a sensibility to marks of honor, of favor, of esteem, and of confidence, which, apart from all considerations of interest, is some pledge for grateful and benevolent returns. Ingratitude is a common topic of declamation against human nature; and it must be confessed, that instances of it are but too infrequent and flagrant both in public and in private life. But the universal and extreme indignation which it inspires, is itself a proof of the energy and prevalence of the contrary sentiment.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“Since it is impossible for the people spontaneously and universally, to move in concert towards their object; and it is therefore essential, that such changes be instituted by some informal and unauthorized propositions, made by some patriotic and respectable citizen or number of citizens.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“The smaller the number and the more permanent and conspicuous the station of men in power, the stronger must be the interest which they will individually feel in whatever concerns the government.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“Nothing is more natural to men in office, than to look with peculiar deference towards that authority to which they owe their official existence.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“The practice of arbitrary imprisonments have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“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.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“It will be well to advert to the proportion between the objects that will require a federal provision in respect to revenue; and those which will require a state provision. We shall discover that the former are altogether unlimited; and that the latter are circumscribed within very moderate bounds.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“By multiplying the means of gratification, by promoting the introduction and circulation of the precious metals, those darling objects of human avarice and enterprise, it serves to vivify and invigorate the channels of industry, and to make them flow with greater activity and copiousness. The assiduous merchant, the laborious husbandman, the active mechanic, and the industrious manufacturer,-all orders of men, look forward with eager expectation and growing alacrity to this pleasing reward of their toils.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“Reason, on the contrary, assures us, that as in so great a number, a fit representative would be most likely to be found, so the choice would be less likely to be diverted from him, by the intrigues of the ambitious, or the bribes of the rich.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“These examples, though as unfit for the imitation, as they are repugnant to the genius of America, are notwithstanding . . . very instructive proofs of the necessity of some institution that will blend stability with liberty.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“At first view it might seem not to square with the republican theory, to suppose either that a majority have not the right, or that a minority will have the force to subvert a government . . . . But theoretic reasoning in this, as in most other cases, must be qualified by the lessons of practice.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“Frequent elections are unquestionably the only policy by which this dependence and sympathy can be effectually secured. But what particular degree of frequency may be absolutely necessary for the purpose, does not appear to be susceptible of any precise calculation; and must depend on a variety of circumstances with which it may be connected. Let us consult experience, the guide that ought always to be followed, whenever it can be found.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“[A] power equal to every possible contingency must exist somewhere in the government . . .”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“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.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“Popular liberty might then have escaped the indelible reproach of decreeing to the same citizens, the hemlock on one day, and statues on the next.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“It is just observation that the people commonly intend the Public Good.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“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.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“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.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“The increasing remoteness of consanguinity is everyday diminishing the force of the family compact between France and Spain. And politicians have ever with great reason considered the ties of blood as feeble and precarious links of political connection.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“The principal purposes to be answered by union are these the common defense of the members; the preservation of the public peace as well against internal convulsions as external attacks; the regulation of commerce with other nations and between the States; the superintendence of our intercourse, political and commercial, with foreign countries.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“That there may happen cases in which the national government may be necessitated to resort to force, cannot be denied.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“The members of the legislative department . . . are numerous. They are distributed and dwell among the people at large. Their connections of blood, of friendship, and of acquaintance embrace a great proportion of the most influential part of the society . . . they are more immediately the confidential guardians of their rights and liberties.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of government.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“The representatives of the people, in a popular assembly, seem sometimes to fancy that they are the people themselves, and betray strong symptoms of impatience and disgust at the least sign of opposition from any other quarter; as if the exercise of its rights, by either the executive or judiciary, were a breach of their privilege and an outrage to their dignity.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“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.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“The idea of governing at all times by the simple force of law (which we have been told is the only admissible principle of republican government) has no place but in the reveries of those political doctors whose sagacity disdains the admonitions of experimental instruction.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“To all general purposes we have uniformly been one people each individual citizen everywhere enjoying the same national rights, privileges, and protection.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“But the most deplorable effect of all, is that diminution of attachment and reverence, which steals into the hearts of the people, towards a political system which betrays so many marks of infirmity, and disappoints so many of their flattering hopes. No government, any more than an individual, will long be respected, without being truly respectable; nor be truly respectable, without possessing a certain portion of order and stability.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution
“The danger of disturbing the public tranquillity by interesting too strongly the public passions, is a still more serious objection against a frequent reference of constitutional questions to the decision of the whole society.”
Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution