The scheme of separate confederacies, which will always multiply the chances of ambition, will be a never failing bait to all such influential characters in the State administrations as are capable of preferring their own emolument and advancement to the public weal.
Alexander HamiltonIt will follow that that government ought to be clothed with all powers requisite to complete execution of its trust.
Alexander HamiltonCivil liberty is only natural liberty, modified and secured by the sanctions of civil society.
Alexander HamiltonExperience teaches, that men are often so much governed by what they are accustomed to see and practice, that the simplest and most obvious improvements . . . are adopted with hesitation, reluctance, and slow gradations.
Alexander HamiltonIt has been observed, [that for the federal government] to coerce the States is one of the maddest projects that was ever devised.
Alexander HamiltonThe laws of certain states . . . give an ownership in the service of Negroes as personal property . . . . But being men, by the laws of God and nature, they were capable of acquiring liberty - and when the captor in war . . . thought fit to give them liberty, the gift was not only valid, but irrevocable.
Alexander Hamilton