Alexander Hamilton Quotes

I confess that there are several parts of this Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve of them; for having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information or fuller consideration to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise .... In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such .... I doubt too whether any other convention we can obtain may be able to make a better Constitution.

If the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the Nation ... be not the guide in expounding it, there can be no security for a consistent and stable government, more than for a faithful exercise of its powers

Do judges follow the Constitution? Well, Yes and No. They follow the Constitution as they understand it.

The original Constitution was devoted primarily to the mechanisms of democratic choice.... [It] provided wide powers to the representative assemblies and ruled only a few subjects off limits by the Constitution.

The federal constitution is perhaps the greatest of human experiments.

A new world has come into being since the Constitution was adopted. Are the narrow, limited necessities of the old thirteen states ... to remain the rule of interpretations?

You must first publicly avow that the constitution of the state is a shackle upon free and liberal legislation; and is, therefore, of as little use in the present enlightened age, as an almanac of the year in which the instrument was framed. There is policy in this measure, by making the constitution a mere dead letter, your headlong proceedings will be attributed to a bold and unshackled mind, whereas, it might otherwise be thought they arose from sheer mulish ignorance.

I wanted the Irish Constitution to be as explicit as it possibly could be, with as few fictions as possible.

Our government is composed of checks …

It would be a novel and dangerous doctrine that a legislature could change the constitution under which it held its existence.

The peculiar circumstances of the moment may render a measure more or less wise, but cannot render it more or less constitutional.

Judicial, Legislative and Executive departments ought to be commensurate

It was evidently necessary to infuse a greater portion of strength into the national government. But Congress were but a single body, with whom it was dangerous to lodge additional powers. Hence arose the necessity of a different organization. In order to form some balance, the departments of government were separated, and as a necessary check, the legislative body was composed of two branches. Steadiness and wisdom are better insured when there is a second branch, to balance and check the first The stability of the laws will be greater when the popular branch, which might be influenced by local views, or the violence of party, is checked by another, whose longer continuance in office will render them more experienced, more temperate, and more competent to decide rightly.

It is well known that this was one of the most delicate questions involved in the formation of the Constitution. Like every other of the same difficult character, it was disposed of in the general compromise of interests, which were the subject of deliberation and adjustment, and it is not too much to say, that the Union could never have been formed if the right of interference with this question, on the part of the General Government, had been insisted on.

The American Constitution is, so far as I can see, the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man.

We cannot afford to have some future Amendment, destructive of our whole theory of government, manipulated through the requisite number of legislatures, with the people standing helpless to prevent it.

You are apprehensive of monarchy; I of aristocracy. I would therefore have given more power to the President and less to the Senate.

The framers of our Constitution came up with two major contributions to the art of government. The first was the idea of an executive not dependent on the political support of the legislature. The second was the idea of the judiciary independent of the executive and legislative branches.

It is useless to talk about Constitutional means for a condition of things never contemplated by any constitution.

It cannot be denied with truth, that this new constitution is, in its first principles, most highly and dangerously, oligarchic.

They [our founding fathers] saw the need from the very outset to improve the product [the Constitution].

If we carefully consider what our constitution is, we will conclude that it is, in fact, a limited monarchy.

The founding fathers hated two things, one was monarchy and the other was, democracy, they gave us a constitution that saw to it we will have neither.

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. –

The constitution of the United States is to receive a reasonable interpretation of its language, and its powers, keeping in view the objects and purposes, for which those powers were conferred. By a reasonable interpretation, we mean, that in case the words are susceptible of two different senses, the one strict, the other more enlarged, that should be adopted, which is most consonant with the apparent objects and intent of the Constitution