Federalism Quotes - Page 2

• Another advantage accruing from this ingredient in the constitution of a senate, is the additional impediment it must prove against improper acts of legislation. No law or resolution can now be passed without the concurrence first of a majority of the people, and then of a majority of the states.

  James Madison

  Law, People, Ingredients

  Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison (2018). “America's Founding Documents: The Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the United States Constitution, the Federalist Papers, and the Bill of Rights”, p.403, First Avenue Editions

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• The public affairs of the union are spread throughout a very extensive region, and are extremely diversified by the local affairs connected with them, and can with difficulty be learnt in any other place, than in the central councils, to which a knowledge of them will be brought by the representatives of every part of the empire. Yet some knowledge of the affairs, and even of the laws of all the states, ought to be possessed by the members from each of the states.

  James Madison

  Law, Unions, Empires

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (2012). “Selected Federalist Papers”, p.127, Courier Corporation

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• The local interest of a State ought in every case to give way to the interests of the Union. For when a sacrifice of one or the other is necessary, the former becomes only an apparent, partial interest, and should yield, on the principle that the smaller good ought never to oppose the greater good.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Sacrifice, Yield, Giving

  Alexander Hamilton (1850). “The works of Alexander Hamilton: comprising his correspondence, and his political and official writings, exclusive of the Federalist, civil and military. Published from the original manuscripts deposited in the Department of State, by order of the Joint Library Committee of Congress”, p.448

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The variety of more minute interests, which will necessarily fall under the superintendence of the local administrations . . . cannot be particularized without involving a detail too tedious and uninteresting to compensate for the instruction it might afford.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Fall, Might, Administration

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1842). “The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788”, p.77

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• American federalism was the embodiment of political tolerance and decentralization - the expression of the liberal conviction that society can manage itself and needs no central plan.

  Llewellyn Rockwell

  Expression, Political, Tolerance

  10 Copy quote

• There is one transcendant advantage belonging to the province of the State governments . . . -I mean the ordinary administration of criminal and civil justice.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Mean, Government, Justice

  12 Copy quote

• Canadian federalism is more than a form of government. It's also a system of values that allows different people in diverse communities to live and work together in harmony for the good of all.

  Jean Chretien

  Government, People, Community

  Jean Chretien (2010). “My Years as Prime Minister”, p.115, Vintage Canada

  39 Copy quote

  Show source

• I am unable to conceive that the state legislatures which must feel so many motives to watch, and which possess so many means of counteracting the federal legislature, would fail either to detect or to defeat a conspiracy of the latter against the liberties of their common constituencies.

  James Madison

  Mean, Liberty, Watches

  12 Copy quote

• I deeply resent the destruction of federalism represented by Hillary Clinton's willingness to go into a state she doesn't even live in and pretend to represent the people there, so I certainly wouldn't imitate it.

  Alan Keyes

  People, Clinton, Destruction

  "The Keyes-Obama Debates: Africans and African Americans". "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos, quod.lib.umich.edu. August 15, 2004.

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• That useful alterations will be suggested by experience, could not but be foreseen . . . . It moreover equally enables the general and state governments to originate the amendment of errors as they may be pointed out by the experience on one side or on the other.

  James Madison

  Errors, Government, Sides

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1842). “The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788”, p.204

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is superfluous to try by the standards of theory, a part of the constitution which is allowed on all hands to be the result not of theory, but "of a spirit of amity, and that mutual deference and concession which the peculiarity of our political situation rendered indispensable" . . . the equal vote allowed to each state, is at once a constitutional recognition of the portion of sovereignty remaining in the individual states, and an instrument for preserving that residuary sovereignty.

  James Madison

  Hands, Political, Trying

  9 Copy quote

• It may be laid down as a general rule, that their confidence in and obedience to a government, will be commonly proportioned to the goodness or badness of its administration . . . . Various reasons have been suggested in the course of these papers, to induce a probability that the general government will be better administered than the particular governments.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Government, Paper, May

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (2014). “The Federalist Papers”, p.126, Courier Corporation

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• It will be well to advert to the proportion between the objects that will require a federal provision in respect to revenue; and those which will require a state provision. We shall discover that the former are altogether unlimited; and that the latter are circumscribed within very moderate bounds.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Unlimited, Proportion, Latter

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (2015). “The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution”, p.158, Coventry House Publishing

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• The appointment of senators by the state legislatures . . . is recommended by the double advantage of favoring a select appointment, and of giving to the state governments such an agency in the formation of the federal government, as must secure the authority of the former.

  James Madison

  Government, Agency, Giving

  James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• I wish not to be regarded as an advocate for the particular organizations of the several state governments . . . they carry strong marks of the haste, and still stronger marks of the inexperience, under which they were framed.

  James Madison

  Strong, Organization, Government

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1852). “The Federalist: On the New Constitution, Written in 1788”, p.228

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• The combination of Federalism and Republicanism which formed the substance of the system, did not constitute a progressive and formative political principle, but it pointed in the direction of a constructive formula.

  Herbert Croly

  Political, Principles, Substance

  Herbert Croly (2005). “The Promise of American Life”, p.51, Cosimo, Inc.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• I confess I am at a loss to discover what temptation the persons entrusted with the administration of the general government could ever feel to divest the States of the authorities of that description. The regulation of the mere domestic police of a State appears to me to hold out slender allurements to ambition.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Ambition, Loss, Government

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1852). “The Federalist, on the new constitution, written in 1788, with an appendix, containing the letters of Pacificus and Helvidius on the proclamation of neutrality of 1793, also the original articles of confederation and the constitution of the United States”, p.76

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• The proposed Constitution, so far from implying an abolition of the State governments, makes them constituent parts of the national sovereignty, by allowing them a direct representation in the Senate, and leaves in their possession certain exclusive and very important portions of sovereign power. This fully corresponds, in every rational import of the terms, with the idea of a federal government.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Ideas, Government, Important

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Quentin P. Taylor, John Jay (1998). “The Essential Federalist: A New Reading of the Federalist Papers”, p.85, Rowman & Littlefield

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• So far I, at least, have no fault to find with implications of Hamilton's Federalism, but unfortunately his policy was in certain other respects tainted with a more doubtful tendency.

  Herbert Croly

  Literature, Faults, Tendencies

  Herbert Croly (2005). “The Promise of American Life”, p.40, Cosimo, Inc.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• The proposed constitution, therefore, even when tested by the rules laid down by its antagonists, 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

  Government, Foundation, Ordinary

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1842). “The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788”, p.179

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The scheme of separate confederacies, which will always multiply the chances of ambition, will be a never failing bait to all such influential characters in the State administrations as are capable of preferring their own emolument and advancement to the public weal.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Ambition, Character, Administration

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (2003). “The Federalist: With Letters of Brutus”, p.290, Cambridge University Press

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Nothing can be more evident, than that an exclusive power of regulating elections for the National Government, in the hands of the State Legislatures, would leave the existence of the Union entirely at their mercy . . . . It is to little purpose to say that a neglect or omission of this kind [not letting the feds have elections], would be unlikely to take place. The constitutional possibility of the thing, without an equivalent for the risk, is an unanswerable objection.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Hands, Omission, Government

  8 Copy quote

• And it's absolutely hypocritical for the political party that talks about states rights, to suddenly ignore states rights, that say that the federal government or federalism has no business in this kind of business.

  Gary Ackerman

  Party, Rights, Government

  6 Copy quote

• The Convention probably foresaw what it has been a principal aim of these papers to inculcate that the danger which most threatens our political welfare is, that the state governments will finally sap the foundations of the Union.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Government, Political, Paper

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (2007). “The Federalist Papers”, p.243, Filiquarian Publishing, LLC.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The State governments possess inherent advantages, which will ever give them an influence and ascendancy over the National Government, and will for ever preclude the possibility of federal encroachments. That their liberties, indeed, can be subverted by the federal head, is repugnant to every rule of political calculation.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Government, Giving, Political

  Alexander Hamilton, John Church Hamilton (1850). “The Works of Alexander Hamilton: Miscellanies, 1774-1789: A full vindication; The farmer refuted; Quebec bill; Resolutions in Congress; Letters from Phocion; New-York Legislature, etc”, p.436

  10 Copy quote

  Show source