Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamiltonwas a Founding Father of the United States, chief staff aide to General George Washington, one of the most influential interpreters and promoters of the U.S. Constitution, the founder of the nation's financial system, the founder of the Federalist Party, the world's first voter-based political party, the founder of the United States Coast Guard, and the founder of The New York Post newspaper. As the first Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton was the primary author of the economic policies...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth11 January 1757
CountryUnited States of America
Men give me credit for some genius. All the genius I have is this. When I have a subject in mind. I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. My mind becomes pervaded with it... the effort which I have made is what people are pleased to call the fruit of genius. It is the fruit of labor and thought.
To cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by multiplying the objects of enterprise, is not among the least considerable of the expedients, by which the wealth of a nation may be promoted.
Were not the disadvantages of slavery too obvious to stand in need of it, I might enumerate and describe the tedious train of calamities inseparable from it. I might show that it is fatal to religion and morality; that it tends to debase the mind, and corrupt its noblest springs of action. I might show that it relaxes the sinews of industry, clips the wings of commerce, and introduces misery and indigence in every shape.
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.
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.
There is a contagion in example which few men have sufficient force of mind to resist.
The loss of liberty to a generous mind is worse than death.
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.
This position will not be disputed, so long as it is admitted that the desire of reward is one of the strongest incentives of human conduct, or that the best security for the fidelity of mankind is to make their interest coincide with their duty. Even the love of fame, the ruling passion of the noblest minds...would on the contrary deter him from the undertaking, when he foresaw that he must quit the scene before he could accomplish the work . . .
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.
In many cases, it will connect itself with preexisting factions and will enlist all the animosities, the partialities, the influence and the interest in one side or the other. And in such cases, it will always be dangerous that the decision will be regulated more by a comparison of strength of the parties, rather than the demonstration of innocence or guilt.
Your people, sir, is nothing but a great beast
I do not think it for the interest of the general government itself, and still less of the union at large, that the state governments should be so little respected as they have been.
I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value