Power over a man’s subsistence is power over his will.

Hamilton’s line crystallizes a recurring theme in eighteenth-century political thought: material dependence can translate into political or personal subordination. If one person or institution controls another’s livelihood—wages, food, land, employment, or access to trade—then “choice” becomes constrained, because refusal risks destitution. The remark points to an economic foundation for liberty: formal rights mean little when survival hinges on pleasing a patron, employer, or government. In modern terms, it anticipates arguments about coercion through economic leverage, patronage, and the vulnerability of those without independent means. It also implies that safeguarding freedom requires dispersing control over subsistence and limiting the ability of any single power to make people economically dependent.