OBSERVATIONS FROM OUR FOUNDING FATHERS
The Patriot Post – Mid-Day Digest
ALEXANDER HAMILTON
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.
— (1787)
[The judicial branch] may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments.
— (1788)
There are certain social principles in human nature, from which we may draw the most solid conclusions with respect to the conduct of individuals and of communities.
— (1788)
[Impeachment] will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused. In many cases it will connect itself with the pre-existing factions, and will enlist all their animosities, partialities, influence, and interest on one side or on the other; and in such cases there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt.
— (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.
— (1788)
In disquisitions of every kind there are certain primary truths, or first principles, upon which all subsequent reasoning must depend.
— (1788)
The confidence of the people will easily be gained by a good administration. This is the true touchstone.
— (1788)
The ingredients which constitute energy in the Executive are, first, unity; secondly, duration; thirdly, an adequate provision for its support; fourthly, competent powers. The ingredients which constitute safety in the republican sense are, first, a due dependence on the people, secondly a due responsibility.
— (1788)
Industry is increased, commodities are multiplied, agriculture and manufacturers flourish: and herein consists the true wealth and prosperity of a state.
— (1790)
The ingredients which constitute energy in the Executive are, first, unity; secondly, duration; thirdly, an adequate provision for its support; fourthly, competent powers. … The ingredients which constitute safety in the republican sense are, first, a due dependence on the people, secondly, a due responsibility.
— (1788)
It is an unquestionable truth, that the body of the people in every country desire sincerely its prosperity. But it is equally unquestionable that they do not possess the discernment and stability necessary for systematic government. To deny that they are frequently led into the grossest of errors, by misinformation and passion, would be a flattery which their own good sense must despise.
— (1788)
To cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by multiplying the objects of enterprise, is not among the least considerable of the expedients, by which the wealth of a nation may be promoted.
— (1791)
Foreign influence is truly the Grecian horse to a republic. We cannot be too careful to exclude its influence.
— (1793)
Good and wise men, in all ages ... have supposed that the Deity, from the relations we stand in to Himself and to each other, has constituted an eternal and immutable law, which is indispensably obligatory upon all mankind, prior to any human institution whatever. Upon this law depend the natural rights of mankind.
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