Founder's Quote Database | The Patriot Post

Founders' Quote Database

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Author

Alexander Hamilton

Federalist No. 9 — 1787
Category: Federalism

The proposed Constitution, so far from implying an abolition of the State governments, makes them constituent parts of the national sovereignty, by allowing them a direct representation in the Senate, and leaves in their possession certain exclusive and very important portions of sovereign power. This fully corresponds, in every rational import of the terms, with the idea of a federal government.

James Madison

Federalist No. 10 — 1787
Category: Separation of Powers

No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity.

Alexander Hamilton

Federalist No. 11 — 1787
Category: International Relations

The rights of neutrality will only be respected when they are defended by an adequate power. A nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege of being neutral.

Alexander Hamilton

Federalist No. 11 — 1787
Category: International Relations

Let the thirteen States, bound together in a strict and indissoluble Union, concur in erecting one great American system, superior to the control of all transatlantic force or influence, and able to dictate the terms of the connection between the old and the new world!

Alexander Hamilton

Federalist No. 12 — 1787
Category: Taxation

It is evident from the state of the country, from the habits of the people, from the experience we have had on the point itself, that it is impracticable to raise any very considerable sums by direct taxation.

James Madison

Federalist No. 14 — 1787
Category: War for Independence

Happily for America, happily, we trust, for the whole human race, they pursued a new and more noble course. They accomplished a revolution which has no parallel in the annals of human society.

Alexander Hamilton

Federalist No. 15 — 1787
Category: International Relations

There is nothing absurd or impracticable in the idea of a league or alliance between independent nations for certain defined purposes precisely stated in a treaty regulating all the details of time, place, circumstance, and quantity; leaving nothing to future discretion; and depending for its execution on the good faith of the parties.

Alexander Hamilton

Federalist No. 15 — 1787
Category: Power

Government implies the power of making laws. It is essential to the idea of a law, that it be attended with a sanction; or, in other words, a penalty or punishment for disobedience.

Alexander Hamilton

Federalist No. 17 — 1787
Category: Federalism

There is one transcendant advantage belonging to the province of the State governments... --I mean the ordinary administration of criminal and civil justice.

Alexander Hamilton

Federalist No. 21 — 1787
Category: Political Leaders

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

Alexander Hamilton

Federalist No. 21 — 1787
Category: Taxation

If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so great as when they are confined within proper and moderate bounds. This forms a complete barrier against any material oppression of the citizens by taxes of this class, and is itself a natural limitation of the power of imposing them.

Alexander Hamilton

Federalist No. 25 — 1787
Category: International Relations

War, like most other things, is a science to be acquired and perfected by diligence, by perserverance, by time, and by practice.

Alexander Hamilton

Federalist No. 32 — 1788
Category: Federalism

But as the plan of the convention aims only at a partial union or consolidation, the State governments would clearly retain all the rights of sovereignty which they before had, and which were not, by that act, EXCLUSIVELY delegated to the United States.

Alexander Hamilton

Federalist No. 31 — 1788
Category: Power

A government ought to contain in itself every power requisite to the full accomplishment of the objects commmitted to its care, and to the complete execution of the trusts for which it is responsible, free from every other control but a regard to the public good and to the sense of the people.

Alexander Hamilton

Federalist No. 33 — 1788
Category: Tyranny

If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify.

Alexander Hamilton

Federalist No. 33 — 1788
Category: Law

The propriety of a law, in a constitutional light, must always be determined by the nature of the powers upon which it is founded.

Alexander Hamilton

Federalist No. 34 — 1788
Category: Constitution

Constitutions of civil government are not to be framed upon a calculation of existing exigencies, but upon a combination of these with the probable exigencies of ages, according to the natural and tried course of human affairs. Nothing, therefore, can be more fallacious than to infer the extent of any power, proper to be lodged in the national government, from an estimate of its immediate necessities.

James Madison

Federalist No. 46 — 1788
Category: Federalism

But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm... But what degree of madness could ever drive the federal government to such an extremity.

James Madison

Federalist No. 48 — 1788
Category: Separation of Powers

An ELECTIVE DESPOTISM was not the government we fought for; but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.

Alexander Hamilton and James Madison

Federalist No. 55 — 1788
Category: House of Representatives

In all very numerous assemblies, of whatever character composed, passion never fails to wrest the sceptre from reason. ... Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.

Alexander Hamilton and James Madison

Federalist No. 55 — 1788
Category: Human Nature

Were the pictures which have been drawn by the political jealousy of some among us faithful likenesses of the human character, the inference would be, that there is not sufficient virture among men for self-government; and that nothing less than the chains of despotism can restrain them from destroying and devouring one another.

Alexander Hamilton and James Madison

Federalist No. 57 — 1788
Category: Constitution

The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virture to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust.

Alexander Hamilton and James Madison

Federalist No. 62 — 1788
Category: Law

It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow.

Alexander Hamilton and James Madison

Federalist No. 62 — 1788
Category: Law

Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?

Alexander Hamilton and James Madison

Federalist No. 62 — 1788
Category: Government

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.

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