Politics & Power Quote by Alexander Hamilton

Power is the whole problem, and Hamilton refuses to romanticize his way around it. The line is built like a trapdoor: you’re invited to think the “great difficulty” is merely getting citizens to obey laws, then he springs the harder truth - the state, once empowered, must be restrained from doing what power always wants to do: keep expanding.

Hamilton writes from the bruised experience of the Articles of Confederation, when the national government couldn’t reliably tax, raise troops, or enforce basic policy. “Enable the government to control the governed” is a blunt diagnosis of that weakness, and a warning to anyone who thinks liberty is safest when the state is incapacitated. His intent is unapologetically architectural: build a structure strong enough to act.

The subtext, though, is less confident than the rhetoric. “Administered by men over men” signals a low, clear-eyed view of human nature. He doesn’t argue that leaders will be virtuous; he assumes they won’t be, at least not reliably. That’s why the second clause matters more: “oblige it to control itself.” The verb is telling. Self-restraint isn’t a moral aspiration here; it’s an engineered constraint.

This is Federalist-era realism: ambition checks ambition, separated powers create friction, and procedure becomes a substitute for purity. The quote works because it admits the paradox at democracy’s core - you need coercive authority to secure rights, and you need counter-coercion to keep that authority from becoming the threat. It’s a sales pitch for constitutional design that doubles as a confession of distrust.