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
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.
In politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.
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.
The treaties of the United States, to have any force at all, must be considered as part of the law of the land.
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.
There can be no time, no state of things, in which Credit is not essential to a Nation...
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.
It has been observed, [that for the federal government] to coerce the States is one of the maddest projects that was ever devised.
The history of human conduct does not warrant that exalted opinion of human virtue which would make it wise in a nation to commit interests of so delicate and momentous a kind as those which concern its intercourse with the rest of the world, to the sole disposal of a magistrate, created and circumstanced, as would be a president of the United States.
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
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.
I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value