On those gentlemen, then, who truly value our republican government, I call, to banish for an instant, the influence of party-spirit, and to lend their aid in extinguishing a rising conflagration, which threatens to involve this devoted country in miseries incalculable.
Alexander Hamilton, Remarks on the repeal of the Judiciary Act, February 11, 1802
Short, and easily taken out of context and made to apply to now. If somebody wanted to do that.
Tis as great an error for a nation to overrate as to underrate itself. Presumption is as great a fault as timidity.
Alexander Hamilton, letter to George Washington, April 1794
I foresee the difficulty on a consolidated plan of drawing a representation from so extensive a continent to one place. What can be the inducements for gentlemen to come 600 miles to a national legislature? The expense would at least amount to 100,000 pounds. This however can be no conclusive objection if it eventuates in an extinction of state governments. The burthen of the latter would be saved, and the expense then would not be great. State distinctions would be found unnecessary, and yet I confess, to carry government to the extremities, the state governments reduced to corporations, and with very limited powers, might be necessary, and the expense of the national government become less burthensome.
Alexander Hamilton, Speech in the Constitutional Convention, June 18, 1787
Nothing is more fallacious than to expect to produce any valuable or permanent results, in political projects, by relying merely on the reason of men. Men are rather reasoning than reasonable animals for the most part governed by the impulse of passion. This is a truth well understood by our adversaries who have practised upon it with no small benefit to their cause.
Alexander Hamilton, letter to James Bayard, April 1802
The republican principle demands, that the deliberate sense of the community should govern the conduct of those to whom they entrust the management of their affairs; but it does not require an unqualified complaisance to every sudden breese of passion, or to every transient impulse which the people may receive from the arts of men, who flatter their prejudices to betray their interests.
Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist No. 71, March 18, 1788
But some people try to make you believe, we are disputing about the foolish trifle of three pence duty upon tea. The may as well tell you, that black is white. Surely you can judge for yourselves. Is a dispute, whether the Parliament of Great Britain shall make what laws, and impose what taxes they please upon us, or not; I say, is this a dispute about three pence duty on tea? The man that affirms it, deserves to be laughed at.
Alexander Hamilton, A Full Vindication of the Measures of the Congress, 1774
There is no purpose, to which public money can be more beneficially applied, than to the acquisition of a new and useful branch of industry; no Consideration more valuable than a permanent addition to the general stock of productive labour.
Alexander Hamilton, Report on the Subject of Manufactures, December 5, 1791
There are actually people who say we should hate Hamilton because of this. Screw them. Hamilton got it right.
But notwithstanding the concurring testimony of experience, in this particular, there are still to be found visionary, or designing men, who stand ready to advocate the paradox of perpetual peace between the States, though dismembered and alienated from each other. ……. Is it not (we may ask these projectors in politics) the true interest of all nations to cultivate the same benevolent and philosophic spirit? If this be their true interest, have they in fact pursued it? Has it not, on the contrary, invariably been found, that momentary passions and immediate interests have a more active and imperious controul over human conduct than general or remote considerations of policy, utility or justice? Have republics in practice been less addicted to war than monarchies? Are not the former administered by men as well as the letter? Are thee not aversions, predilections, rivalships and desires of unjust acquisition that affect nations as well as kings? Are not popular assemblies frequently subject to the impulses of rage, resentment, jealousy, avarice, and of other irregular and violent propensities? Is it not well known that their determinations are often governed by a few individuals, in whom they place confidence, and are of course liable to be tinctured by the passions and views of those individuals? Has commerce hitherto done any thing more than change the objects of war? Is not the love of wealth as domineering and enterprising a passion as that of power or glory? Have there not been as many wars founded upon commercial motives, since that has become the prevailing system of nations, as were before occasioned by the cupidity of territory or dominion? Has not the spirit of commerce in many instances administered new incentives to the appetite both for the one and for the other?
Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist No. 6, November 14, 1787
So disunited states would be at perfect peace with each other because of their commerce? Yeah, right.
What at first sight may seem a remedy, is in reality a poison. To give a minority a negative upon the majority (which is always the case where more than a majority is requisite to a decision) is in its tendency to subject the sense of the greater number to that of the lesser number. Congress from the non-attendance of a few States have been frequently in the situation of a Polish Diet, where a single veto has been sufficient to put a stop to all their movements. A sixtieth part of the Union, which is about the proportion of Delaware and Rhode Island, has several times been able to oppose an intire bar to its operations. This is one of those refinements which in practice has an effect, the reverse of what is expected from it in theory.
Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist No. 22, December 14, 1787
The filibuster connection is obvious, right?
Nothing can be more evident, than that an exclusive power of regulating elections for the National Government, in the hands of the State Legislatures, would leave the existence of the Union entirely at their mercy.
Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist No. 59, February 22, 1788
