Jefferson Quotes
“It would reduce the whole instrument to a single
phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do
whatever would be for the good of the United States;
and as they would be the sole judges of the good or
evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they
please. Certainly no such universal power was meant
to be given them. It [the Constitution] was intended to
lace them up straightly within the enumerated powers
and those without which, as means, these powers
could not be carried into effect.”
Thomas Jefferson, Opinion on a National Bank,
February 15, 1791
Who wrote it?
What is it saying?
Why did they write it?
What is the point of it?
When was it written?
Where was it written?
What was happen when it was written?
“Although a republican government is slow to move, yet when once in motion, its
momentum becomes irresistible.”
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis C. Gray, 1815
“Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone.
The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories.”
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 14, 1781
“I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that 'all
powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by
it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people.' To take a single step
beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is
to take possession of a boundless field of power, not longer susceptible of any
definition.”
Thomas Jefferson, Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank, February
15, 1791
“I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people
themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control
with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform
their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of
constitutional power.”
Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Charles Jarvis, September 28, 1820
Hamilton and Madison Quotes
A feeble executive implies a feeble execution of the government. A
feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a
government ill executed, whatever may be its theory, must be, in
practice, a bad government.
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 70, 1788
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, Federalist No. 31, January 1, 1788
And it proves, in the last place, that liberty can have nothing to fear
from the judiciary alone, but would have everything to fear from its
union with either of the other departments.
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 78, 1788
Nothing, therefore, can be more fallacious than to infer the extent of
any power, proper to be lodged in the national government, from an
estimate of its immediate necessities.
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 34, January 4, 1788
Good constitutions are formed upon a comparison of the liberty of the
individual with the strength of government: If the tone of either be too
high, the other will be weakened too much. It is the happiest possible
mode of conciliating these objects, to institute one branch peculiarly
endowed with sensibility, another with knowledge and firmness.
Through the opposition and mutual control of these bodies, the
government will reach, in its regular operations, the perfect balance
between liberty and power.
Alexander Hamilton, speech to the New York Ratifying Convention,
June 25, 1788
I am persuaded that a firm union is as necessary to perpetuate our
liberties as it is to make us respectable; and experience will probably
prove that the National Government will be as natural a guardian of
our freedom as the State Legislatures.
Alexander Hamilton, speech to the New York Ratifying Convention,
June, 1788
I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the
extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in
the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would
contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and on this very
account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were
granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is
no power to do?
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, 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.
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 33, January 3, 1788
The fabric of American empire ought to rest on the solid basis of THE
CONSENT OF THE PEOPLE. The streams of national power ought
to flow from that pure, original fountain of all legitimate authority.
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 22, December 14, 1787
[T]he Constitution ought to be the standard of construction for the
laws, and that wherever there is an evident opposition, the laws ought
to give place to the Constitution. But this doctrine is not deducible
from any circumstance peculiar to the plan of convention, but from
the general theory of a limited Constitution.
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 81, 1788
No government, any more than an individual, will long be respected
without being truly respectable; nor be truly respectable without
possessing a certain portion of order and stability.
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 62, 1788
By what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on
human nature? If men were angels, no government would be
necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor
internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a
government which is to be administered by men over men, the great
difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control
the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself. A
dependence on the people is no doubt the primary control on the
government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of
auxiliary precautions.
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 51, 1788
The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary in
the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether
hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the
very definition of tyranny.
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 47, 1788
The want of a mutual guarenty of the state governments is another
capital imperfection in the federalist plan. There is nothing of this kind
declared in the articles that compose it; and to imply a tacit guaranty
from considerations of utility, would be a still more flagrant departure
from the clause which has been mentioned, than to imply a tacit
power of coercion from the like considerations. The want of a
guaranty, though it might in its consequences endanger the Union,
does not so immediately attack its existence as the want of a
constitutional sanction to its laws.
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 21, 1788
If we resort for a criterion to the different principles on which different
forms of government are established, we may define a republic to be,
or at least may bestow that name on, a government which derives all
its powers directly or indirectly form the great body of the people and
is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure, for a
limited period, or during good behavior. It is essential to such
government that it be derived from the great body of the society, not
from an inconsiderable proportion, or a favored class of it; otherwise
a handful of tyrannical nobles, exercising their oppression by a
delegation of their powers, might aspire to the rank of republicans,
and claim for their government the honorable title of republic.
James Madison, Federalist Papers # 39
It is sufficient for such a government that the persons administering it
be appointed, either directly or indirectly, by the people; and that they
hold their appointments by either of the tenures specified; otherwise
every government in the United States …would be degraded from the
republican character.
James Madison, Federalist Papers # 39
According to all the constitutions… the tenure of the highest offices is
extended to a definite period, and in many instances, both within the
legislative and executive departments, to a period of years.
According to the provisions of most of the constitutions, again, as well
as according to the most respectable and received opinions on the
subject, the members of the judiciary department are to retain their
offices by the firm tenure of good behavior.
James Madison, Federalist Papers # 39
The proposed Constitution, therefore, is, in strictness, neither a
national nor a federal constitution, but a composition of both. In its
foundation it is federal, not national; in the sources from which the
ordinary powers of the government are drawn, it is partly federal and
partly national; in the operation of these powers it is national, not
federal; in the extent of them, again, it is federal, not national and
finally in the authoritative mode of introducing amendments, it is
neither wholly federal nor wholly national.
James Madison, Federalist Papers # 39
The constitution proposed by the convention may be considered
under two general points of view. The first relates to the sum or
quantity of power which it vests in the government, including the
restraints imposed on the states. The second, to the particular
structure of the government and the distribution of this power among
its several branches.
James Madison, Federalist Papers # 41
Under the first view of the subject, two important questions arise: 1.
Whether any part of the powers transferred to the general
government be unnecessary or improper? 2. Whether the entire mass
of them be dangerous to the portion of jurisdiction left in the states?
James Madison, Federalist Papers # 41
It cannot have escaped those who have attended with candor to the
arguments employed against the extensive powers of the
government, that the authors of them have very little considered how
far these powers were necessary means of attaining a necessary
end.
James Madison, Federalist Papers # 41