...[V]igor of government is essential to the security of…

The vigour of government is essential to the security of liberty. . . . a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask…

— Alexander Hamilton

“Vigor of government is essential to the security of liberty.”

— Alexander Hamilton

A feeble executive implies a feeble execution of the government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government…

— Alexander Hamilton

In a free government, the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights. It consists in the one case…

— Alexander Hamilton

[T]here is not a syllable in the plan under consideration which directly empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the spirit…

— Alexander Hamilton

If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature…

— Alexander Hamilton

If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of…

— Alexander Hamilton

...that standing army can never be formidable (threatening) to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens, little if…

— Alexander Hamilton

I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not…

— Alexander Hamilton

When occasions present themselves, in which the interests of the people are at variance with their inclinations, it is the duty of the persons…

— Alexander Hamilton

Let Americans disdain to be the instruments of European greatness! Let the thirteen States, bound together in a strict and indissoluble Union, concur in…

— Alexander Hamilton

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

— Alexander Hamilton

The proposed Constitution, so far from implying an abolition of the State governments, makes them constituent parts of the national sovereignty, by allowing them…

— Alexander Hamilton

Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. It is essential to the protection of the community against…

— Alexander Hamilton

The citizens of America have too much discernment to be argued into anarchy. And I am much mistaken, if experience has not wrought a…

— Alexander Hamilton