Alexander Hamilton (c. 1755/1757-1804)
“Among the most formidable of the obstacles which the new Constitution will have to encounter may readily be distinguished the obvious interest of a certain class of men in every State to resist all changes which may hazard a diminution of the power, emolument, and consequence of the offices they hold under the State establishments; and the perverted ambition of another class of men, who will either hope to aggrandize themselves by the confusions of their country, or will flatter themselves with fairer prospects of elevation from the subdivision of the empire into several partial confederacies than from its union under one government.”
- From The Federalist No. I, by Alexander Hamilton, in The Federalist Papers. Republished by the Henry Regnery Company (Chicago, Illinois, 1948).
