18

Epilogue: Securing the Republic



CHAPTER 18 | Document 15

Alexander Hamilton, Continentalist, no. 6

4 July 1782Papers 3:103

We may preach till we are tired of the theme, the necessity of disinterestedness in republics, without making a single proselyte. The virtuous declaimer will neither persuade himself nor any other person to be content with a double mess of porridge, instead of a reasonable stipend for his services. We might as soon reconcile ourselves to the Spartan community of goods and wives, to their iron coin, their long beards, or their black broth. There is a total dissimulation in the circumstances, as well as the manners, of society among us; and it is as ridiculous to seek for models in the simple ages of Greece and Rome, as it would be to go in quest of them among the Hottentots and Laplanders.


The Founders' Constitution
Volume 1, Chapter 18, Document 15
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch18s15.html
The University of Chicago Press

The Papers of Alexander Hamilton. Edited by Harold C. Syrett et al. 26 vols. New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1961--79. See also: Federalist

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