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
Alexander Hamilton quotes about
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.
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.
The regular distribution of power into distinct departments; the introduction of legislative balances and checks; the institution of courts composed of judges holding their offices during good behavior; the representation of the people in the legislature by deputies of their own election . . . They are means, and powerful means, by which the excellences of republican government may be retained and its imperfections lessened or avoided.
The same rule that teaches the propriety of a partition between the various branches of power, teaches us likewise that this partition ought to be so contrived as to render the one independent of the other.
Measures which serve to abridge the free competition of foreign Articles, have a tendency to occasion an enhancement of prices.
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.
It is of the greatest consequence that the debt should . . . be remoulded into such a shape as will bring the expenditure of the nation to a level with its income. Till this shall be accomplished, the finances of the United States will never wear proper countenance. Arrears of interest, continually accruing, will be as continual a monument, either of inability, or of ill faith and will not cease to have an evil influence on public credit.
The prosperity of commerce is now perceived and acknowledged by all enlightened statesmen to be the most useful as well as the most productive source of national wealth, and has accordingly become a primary object of their political cares.
The natural effect of low interest is to increase trade and industry; because undertakings of every kind can be prosecuted with greater advantage.
The tendency of a national bank is to increase public and private credit. The former gives power to the state, for the protection of its rights and interests: and the latter facilitates and extends the operations of commerce among individuals. Industry is increased, commodities are multiplied, agriculture and manufacturers flourish: and herein consists the true wealth and prosperity of a state.
The nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master and deserves one.
Power over a man's subsistence is power over his will.
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.
Real firmness is good for anything; strut is good for nothing