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Alexander Hamilton Quotes

Founding Father of the United States

Alexander Hamilton was a Founding Father of the United States, born on January 11, 1757, and died on July 12, 1804. He played a crucial role in the American Revolutionary War and was instrumental in the drafting of the U.S. Constitution. As the first Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton promoted fiscal stability and economic growth, establishing the First Bank of the United States and proposing solutions for federal debt. His ideas and policies had a profound impact on the early political and economic development of the United States.

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Famous Alexander Hamilton Quotes

“The history of ancient and modern republics had taught them that many of the evils which those republics suffered arose from the want of a certain balance, and that mutual control indispensable to a wise administration. They were convinced that popular assemblies are frequently misguided by ignorance, by sudden impulses, and the intrigues of ambitious men; and that some firm barrier against these operations was necessary. They, therefore, instituted your Senate.”

“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.”

People Men Political Politics Numbers Liberty Careers Court Tyranny Republic Tyrants Federalist Federalist Papers

Book:The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution

Source: The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution

“There is no part of the administration of government that requires extensive information and a thorough knowledge of the principles of political economy, so much as the business of taxation. The man who understands those principles best will be least likely to resort to oppressive expedients, or sacrifice any particular class of citizens to the procurement of revenue. It might be demonstrated that the most productive system of finance will always be the least burdensome.”

Source: The Federalist Papers and the Constitution of the United States: The Principles of the American Government

“There is perhaps, nothing more likely to disturb the tranquillity of nations, than their being bound to mutual contributions for any common object that does not yield an equal and coincident benefit. For it is an observation as true, as it is trite, that there is nothing men differ so readily about as the payment of money.”

Men Doe Nations Common Objects Equal Benefits Bounds Observation Contribution Mutual Yield Taxation Payment Tranquillity

Book:The Federalist on the New Constitution

Source: The Federalist on the New Constitution

“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.”

Men States Speak Causes Interest Cases Judging Ought Court Supposed To Be Agency Bias Judiciary Tribunals Reasonableness

Book:The Federalist

Source: The Federalist

“There are men who could neither be distressed nor won into a sacrifice of their duty; but this stern virtue is the growth of few soils: And in the main it will be found, that a power over a man's support is a power over his will.”

Men Found Growth Support Virtue Sacrifice Duty Separation Soil Separation Of Powers

Book:The Federalist on the New Constitution

Source: The Federalist on the New Constitution

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

Men Heaven Enemy Firm Virtuous

Book:The works of Alexander Hamilton: containing his correspondence, and his political and official writings, exclusive of the Federalist, civil and military

Source: The works of Alexander Hamilton: containing his correspondence, and his political and official writings, exclusive of the Federalist, civil and military

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

Men Natural Constitution Ill Cures Administration Representatives Patriot

Book:The Federalist, on the new constitution, written in 1788, with an appendix, containing the letters of Pacificus and Helvidius on the proclamation of neutrality of 1793, also the original articles of confederation and the constitution of the United States

Source: The Federalist, on the new constitution, written in 1788, with an appendix, containing the letters of Pacificus and Helvidius on the proclamation of neutrality of 1793, also the original articles of confederation and the constitution of the United States

“[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.”

Source: The Essential Federalist: A New Reading of the Federalist Papers

“Upon this law, depend the natural rights of mankind, the supreme being gave existence to man, together with the means of preserving and beatifying that existence. He endowed him with rational faculties, by the help of which, to discern and pursue such things, as were consistent with his duty and interest, and invested him with an inviolable right to personal liberty, and personal safety.”

Source: The Official and Other Papers of the Late Major-General Alexander Hamilton: Comp. Chiefly from the Originals in the Possession of Mrs. Hamilton ...

“As you sometimes swear by him that made you, I conclude your sentiments do not correspond with his, in that which is the basis of the doctrine you both agree in: and this makes it impossible to imagine whence this congruity between you arises. "To grant that there is a supreme intelligence who rules the world and has established laws to regulate the actions of his creatures; and still to assert that man, in a state of nature, may be considered as perfectly free from all restraints of law and government, appears to a common understanding altogether irreconcilable.”

Source: The Works of Alexander Hamilton: Miscellanies, 1774-1789: A full vindication; The farmer refuted; Quebec bill; Resolutions in Congress; Letters from Phocion; New-York Legislature, etc

“Good and wise men, in all ages, have embraced a very dissimilar theory. They have supposed that the deity, from the relations we stand in to himself and to each other, has constituted an eternal and immutable law, which is indispensably obligatory upon all mankind, prior to any human institution whatever. This is what is called the law of nature....Upon this law depend the natural rights of mankind.”

Men Humans Age Law Natural Wise Rights Mankind Theory Depends Eternal Relation Institutions Voting Deities Laws Of Nature Natural Rights

Book:The Works of Alexander Hamilton: Miscellanies, 1774-1789: A full vindication; The farmer refuted; Quebec bill; Resolutions in Congress; Letters from Phocion; New-York Legislature, etc

Source: The Works of Alexander Hamilton: Miscellanies, 1774-1789: A full vindication; The farmer refuted; Quebec bill; Resolutions in Congress; Letters from Phocion; New-York Legislature, etc

“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.”

Thinking Men May War Ends Turns Loss Profit Selling Destroyed

Author: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.”

Men Giving Law Freedom Struggle Willing Creatures Giving Up Fellows Slavery Property Slave Your Freedom

Author:Alexander Hamilton