Alexander Hamilton: Power

Alexander Hamilton was Founding Father of the United States. Explore interesting quotes on power.
Alexander Hamilton: 212 quotes4 likes

“The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.”

Alexander Hamilton book The Farmer Refuted

The Farmer Refuted (1775)

“For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?”

Alexander Hamilton Federalist Papers

No. 84
The Federalist Papers (1787–1788)
Context: I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?

“There are men who could neither be distressed nor won into a sacrifice of their duty; but this stern virtue is the growth of few soils; and in the main it will be found that a power over a man's support is a power over his will.”

Alexander Hamilton Federalist Papers

No. 73
The Federalist Papers (1787–1788)
Context: There are men who could neither be distressed nor won into a sacrifice of their duty; but this stern virtue is the growth of few soils; and in the main it will be found that a power over a man's support is a power over his will. If it were necessary to confirm so plain a truth by facts, examples would not be wanting, even in this country, of the intimidation or seduction of the Executive by the terrors or allurements of the pecuniary arrangements of the legislative body.

“The rights of neutrality will only be respected, when they are defended by an adequate power.”

Alexander Hamilton Federalist Papers

No. 11
The Federalist Papers (1787–1788)
Context: 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.

“Give all the power to the many, they will oppress the few. Give all the power to the few, they will oppress the many.”

Alexander Hamilton

“If a number of political societies enter into a larger political society, the laws which the latter may enact, pursuant to the powers intrusted to it by its constitution, must necessarily be supreme over those societies and the individuals of whom they are composed…. But it will not follow from this doctrine that acts of the larger society which are not pursuant to its constitutional powers, but which are invasions of the residuary authorities of the smaller societies, will become the supreme law of the land. These will be merely acts of usurpation, and will deserve to be treated as such.”

Alexander Hamilton Federalist Papers

No. 33
The Federalist Papers (1787–1788)

“From these causes united, the mere separation of the occupation of the cultivator, from that of the Artificer, has the effect of augmenting the productive powers of labour, and with them, the total mass of the produce or revenue of a Country. In this single view of the subject, therefore, the utility of Artificers or Manufacturers, towards promoting an increase of productive industry, is apparent.”

Alexander Hamilton Report on Manufactures

Report on Manufactures (1791)

“If the end be clearly comprehended within any of the specified powers, and if the measure have an obvious relation to that end, and is not forbidden by any particular provision of the Constitution, it may safely be deemed to come within the compass of the national authority.”

Alexander Hamilton

Opinion on the Constitutionality of the Bank (23 February 1791)

“If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual State. In a single State, if the persons entrusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular measures for defense. The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair.”

Alexander Hamilton Federalist Papers

No. 28
The Federalist Papers (1787–1788)

“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 Papers

No. 15
The Federalist Papers (1787–1788)

“Every power vested in a government is in its nature sovereign, and includes by force of the term a right to employ all the means requisite…to the attainment of the ends of such power.”

Alexander Hamilton

Opinion on the Constitutionality of the Bank (23 February 1791)

“The fabric of American Empire ought to rest on the solid basis of THE CONSENT OF THE PEOPLE. The streams of National power ought to flow immediately from that pure original fountain of all legitimate authority.”

Alexander Hamilton Federalist Papers

No. 22
The Federalist Papers (1787–1788)

“When the Manufacturing Capitalist of Europe shall advert to the many important advantages, which have been intimated, in the Course of this report, he cannot but perceive very powerful inducements to a transfer of himself and his Capital to the United States.”

Alexander Hamilton Report on Manufactures

Report on Manufactures (1791)

“In the general course of human nature, a power over a man's subsistence amounts to a power over his will.”

Alexander Hamilton Federalist Papers

No. 79
The Federalist Papers (1787–1788)

“Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been, and ever will be, pursued, until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit. In a society, under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign, as in a state of nature where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger: And as in the latter state even the stronger individuals are prompted by the uncertainty of their condition, to submit to a government which may protect the weak, as well as themselves: so in the former state, will the more powerful factions be gradually induced by a like motive, to wish for a government which will protect all parties, the weaker as well as the more powerful.”

Alexander Hamilton Federalist Papers

No. 51
The Federalist Papers (1787–1788)

“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 Papers

No. 33
The Federalist Papers (1787–1788)

“An avaricious man might be tempted to betray the interests of the State to the acquisition of wealth. An ambitious man might make his own aggrandizement, by the aid of a foreign power, the price of his treachery to his constituents. 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.”

Alexander Hamilton Federalist Papers

No. 75
The Federalist Papers (1787–1788)