Hamilton, Alexander

US (West Indies-born) lawyer and Federalist politician

with James Madison and John Jay, co-wrote Federalist Papers

1st Secretary of the Treasury 1789-1795

established Bank of US 1791

killed in duel by Aaron Burr

• "...for it is a truth, which the experience of all ages has attested, that the people are commonly most in danger when the means of insuring their rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the least suspicion."
• "Men give me credit for some genius. All the genius I have lies in this; when I have a subject in hand, I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. My mind becomes pervaded with it. Then the effort that I have made is what people are pleased to call the fruit of genius. It is the fruit of labor and thought."
• "The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased."
• "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."
• "Those who stand for nothing fall for anything."