58 Iconic Alexander Hamilton Quotes on Life and Death

Alexander Hamilton is one of wisest founding fathers of the United States, having written the Federalist papers and quickly becoming the first secretary. He was one of the most trusted advisors and fought three wars with sheer bravery.

These iconic quotes will remind you of the freedom that we enjoy today because of his work.

1. There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human nature rise above itself in acts of bravery and heroism.

Alexander Hamilton

2. The system will be founded upon the most easy and equal principles – to draw as much as possible from direct taxation, to lay the principal burdens on the wealthy, etc.

Alexander Hamilton

3. In framing a government for posterity as well as ourselves, we ought, in those provisions which are designed to be permanent, to calculate, not on temporary, but on permanent causes of expense.

Alexander Hamilton

4. That Americans are entitled to freedom is incontestable on every rational principle. All men have one common original: they participate in one common nature, and consequently have one common right. No reason can be assigned why one man should exercise any power or preeminence over his fellow-creatures more than another; unless they have voluntarily vested him with it.

Alexander Hamilton

5. There is no part of the administration of government that requires extensive information and a thorough knowledge of the principles of political economy, so much as the business of taxation. The man who understands those principles best will be least likely to resort to oppressive expedients, or sacrifice any particular class of citizens to the procurement of revenue. It might be demonstrated that the most productive system of finance will always be the least burdensome.

Alexander Hamilton

6. The citizens of America have too much discernment to be argued into anarchy. And I am much mistaken, if experience has not wrought a deep and solemn conviction in the public mind, that greater energy of government is essential to the welfare and prosperity of the community

Alexander Hamilton

7. A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing. It will be a powerful cement of our Union.

Alexander Hamilton

8. The idea of restraining the legislative authority, in the means of providing for the national defense, is one of those refinements which owe their origin to a zeal for liberty more ardent than enlightened.

Alexander Hamilton

9. Establish that a Government may decline a provision for its debts, though able to make it, and you overthrow all public morality, you unhinge all the principles that must preserve the limits of free constitutions.

Alexander Hamilton

10. The confederation in my opinion should give Congress complete sovereignty; except as to that part of the internal police, which relates to the rights of property and life among individuals and to raising money by internal taxes.

Alexander Hamilton

11. The genius of liberty reprobates every thing arbitrary or discretionary in taxation.

Alexander Hamilton

12. Were it not that it might require too long a discussion, it would not be difficult to demonstrate that a large and well-organized republic can scarcely lose its liberty from any other cause than that of anarchy, to which a contempt of the laws is the high-road.

Alexander Hamilton

13. But though a funded debt is not in the first instance, an absolute increase of Capital, or an augmentation of real wealth; yet by serving as a New power in the operation of industry, it has within certain bounds a tendency to increase the real wealth of a Community, in like manner as money borrowed by a thrifty farmer, to be laid out in the improvement of his farm may, in the end, add to his Stock of real riches.

Alexander Hamilton

14. Take mankind in general, they are vicious–their passions may be operated upon.

Alexander Hamilton

15. 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 time exists, as fast as shall be practicable consistently with integrity and good faith.

Alexander Hamilton

16. Give me the steady, uniform, unshaken security of constitutional freedom. Give me the right to be tried by a jury of my own neighbors, and to be taxed by my own representatives only. What will become of the law and courts of justice without this? The shadow may remain, but the substance will be gone. I would die to preserve the law upon a solid foundation; but take away liberty, and the foundation is destroyed.

Alexander Hamilton

17. The passions of a revolution are apt to hurry even good men into excesses.

Alexander Hamilton

18. There are respectable individuals, who from a just aversion to an accumulation of Public debt, are unwilling to concede to it any kind of utility, who can discern no good to alleviate the ill with which they suppose it pregnant; who cannot be persuaded that it ought in any sense to be viewed as an increase of capital lest it should be inferred, that the more debt the more capital, the greater the burthens the greater the blessings of the community.

Alexander Hamilton

19. Government is frequently and aptly classed under two descriptions—a government of force, and a government of laws; the first is the definition of despotism—the last, of liberty. But how can a government of laws exist when the laws are disrespected and disobeyed? Government supposes control. It is that power by which individuals in society are kept from doing injury to each other, and are brought to co-operate to a common end. The instruments by which it must act are either the authority of the laws or force. If the first be destroyed, the last must be substituted; and where this becomes the ordinary instrument of government, there is an end to liberty!

Alexander Hamilton

20. States, like individuals, who observe their engagements [pay off their debts], are respected and trusted: while the reverse is the fate of those, who pursue an opposite conduct.

Alexander Hamilton

21. Men are rather reasoning than reasonable animals for the most part governed by the impulse of passion.

Alexander Hamilton

22. A government ought to contain in itself every power requisite to the full accomplishment of the objects committed 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

23. The fundamental source of all your errors, sophisms, and false reasonings, is a total ignorance of the natural rights of mankind. Were you once to become acquainted with these, you could never entertain a thought, that all men are not, by nature, entitled to a parity of privileges. You would be convinced that natural liberty is a gift of the beneficent Creator to the whole human race, and that civil liberty is founded in that, and cannot be wrested from any people without the most manifest violation of justice. Civil liberty is only natural liberty, modified and secured by the sanctions of civil society. It is not a thing, in its own nature, precarious and dependent on human will and caprice, but it is conformable to the constitution of man, as well as necessary to the well-being of society.

Alexander Hamilton

24. And as, on the one hand, the necessity for borrowing in particular emergencies cannot be doubted, so, on the other, it is equally evident that, to be able to borrow upon good terms, it is essential that the credit of a nation should be well established.

Alexander Hamilton

25. Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint.

Alexander Hamilton

26. Were not the disadvantages of slavery too obvious to stand in need of it, I might enumerate and describe the tedious train of calamities inseparable from it. I might show that it is fatal to religion and morality; that it tends to debase the mind, and corrupt its noblest springs of action. I might show that it relaxes the sinews of industry, clips the wings of commerce, and introduces misery and indigence in every shape.

Alexander Hamilton

27. A national debt if it is not excessive will be to us a national blessing; it will be powerfull cement of our union. It will also create a necessity for keeping up taxation to a degree which without being oppressive, will be a spur to industry.

Alexander Hamilton

28. Nothing can more interest the National Credit and prosperity, than a constant and systematic attention to husband [manage prudently] all the means previously possessed for extinguishing the present debt, and to avoid, as much as possible, the incurring of any new debt.

Alexander Hamilton

29. Credit abroad was the trunk of our Mercantile credit, from which issued ramifications that nourished all the parts of Domestic Labour and industry.

Alexander Hamilton

30. When you have given a power of taxation to the General Government, none of the States individually will be holden for the discharge of the Federal obligations; the burden will be on the Union.

Alexander Hamilton

31. It equally proves, that though individual oppression may now and then proceed from the courts of justice, the general liberty of the people can never be endangered from that quarter; I mean so long as the judiciary remains truly distinct from both the legislature and the Executive. For I agree, that “there is no liberty, if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers.” And it proves, in the last place, that as liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone, but would have every thing to fear from its union with either of the other departments…

Alexander Hamilton

32. Ambition without principle never was long under the guidance of good sense.

Alexander Hamilton

33. If the power of taxing is restricted, the consequence is, that on the breaking out of a war you must divert the funds appropriated to the payment of debts, to answer immediate exigencies. Thus, you violate your engagements [to pay off the debt] at the very time you increase the burthen of them.

Alexander Hamilton

34. At present some of the states are little more than a society of husbandmen. Few of them have made much progress in those branches of industry, which give a variety and complexity to the affairs of a nation.

Alexander Hamilton

35. Limiting the powers of government to certain resources, is rendering the funds precarious; and obliging the government to ask, instead of empowering it to command, is to destroy all confidence and credit. If the power of taxing is restricted, the consequence is, that on the breaking out of a war you must divert the funds appropriated to the payment of debts, to answer immediate exigencies. Thus, you violate your engagements at the very time you increase the burthen of them. Besides, sound policy condemns the practice of accumulating debts. A government, to act with energy, should have the possession of all its revenues to answer present purposes.

Alexander Hamilton

36. The establishment of permanent funds would not only answer the public purposes infinitely better than temporary supplies; but it would be the most effectual way of easing the people. With this basis for procuring credit, the amount of present taxes might be greatly diminished. Large sums of money might be borrowed abroad at a low interest, and introduced into the country to, defray the current expences and pay the public debts; which would not only lessen the demand for immediate supplies, but would throw more money into circulation, and furnish the people with greater means of paying the taxes.

Alexander Hamilton

37. Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. To be more safe, [nations] at length become willing to run the risk of being less free.

Alexander Hamilton

38. t is a general principle of human nature, that a man will be interested in whatever he possesses, in proportion to the firmness or precariousness of the tenure by which he holds it…

Alexander Hamilton

39. Hence, in a state of nature, no man had any moral power to deprive another of his life, limbs, property, or liberty; nor the least authority to command or exact obedience from him, except that which arose from the ties of consanguinity.

Alexander Hamilton

40. As to taxes, they are evidently inseparable from government. It is impossible without them to pay the debts of the nation, to protect it from foreign danger, or to secure individuals from lawless violence and rapine.

Alexander Hamilton

41. How is it possible that a government half supplied and always necessitous, can fulfill the purposes of its institution, can provide for the security, advance the prosperity, or support the reputation of the commonwealth?

Alexander Hamilton

42. If this spirit shall ever be so far debased as to tolerate a law not obligatory on the Legislature as well as on the people, the people will be prepared to tolerate anything but liberty.

Alexander Hamilton

43. Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. Even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates. The violent destruction of life and property incident to war, the continual effort and alarm attendant on a state of continual danger, will compel nations the most attached to liberty to resort for repose and security to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political rights. To be more safe, they at length become willing to run the risk of being less free.

Alexander Hamilton

44. 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

45. When all the different kinds of industry obtain in a community, each individual can find his proper element, and can call into activity the whole vigour of his nature. And the community is benefitted by the services of its respective members, in the manner, in which each can serve it with most effect.

Alexander Hamilton

46. 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.

Alexander Hamilton

47. A fondness for power is implanted in most men, and it is natural to abuse it when acquired.

Alexander Hamilton

48. It is a signal advantage of taxes on articles of consumption, that they contain in their own nature a security against excess. They prescribe their own limit; which cannot be exceeded without defeating the end proposed, that is, an extension of the revenue.

Alexander Hamilton

49. A uniform tax is perfectly constitutional; and yet it may operate oppressively upon certain members of the Union.

Alexander Hamilton

50. The only distinction between freedom and slavery consists in this: In the former state a man is governed by the laws to which he has given his consent, either in person or by his representative; in the latter, he is governed by the will of another. In the one case, his life and property are his own; in the other, they depend upon the pleasure of his master. It is easy to discern which of these two states is preferable.

Alexander Hamilton

51. In a government framed for durable liberty, not less regard must be paid to giving the magistrate a proper degree of authority, to make and execute the laws with rigour, than to guarding against encroachments upon the rights of the community. As too much power leads to despotism, too little leads to anarchy, and both eventually to the ruin of the people.

Alexander Hamilton

52. Every proposal for a specific tax is sure to meet with opposition.

Alexander Hamilton

53. The great leading objects of the Federal Government, in which revenue is concerned, are to maintain domestic peace, and provide for the common defence. In these are comprehended the regulation of commerce – that is, the whole system of foreign intercourse, the support of armies and navies, and of the civil administration.

Alexander Hamilton

54. The great art is to distribute the public burthens well and not suffer them, either first, or last, to fall too heavily upon parts of the community; else distress and disorder must ensue.

Alexander Hamilton

55. All imposts upon commerce ought to be laid by Congress and appropriated to their use, for without certain revenues, a government can have no power; that power, which holds the purse strings absolutely, must rule.

Alexander Hamilton

56. The confederation in my opinion should give Congress complete sovereignty; except as to that part of the internal police, which relates to the rights of property and life among individuals and to raising money by internal taxes.

Alexander Hamilton

57. 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

58. We are now forming a republican government. Real liberty is never found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.

Alexander Hamilton