Because it deals with something people argue about constantly, standing armies, federal control of national defense, fear of government power, and the question nobody wants to say out loud, if government is capable of tyranny, what or who stops it? And yes, this connects directly to the Second Amendment because Federalist No. 25 is part of the founding-era debate about force, security, and the relationship between the government and the people. So let’s walk through it carefully, in plain English, so that everybody understands it, with the key arguments, and then I’ll tie it in to the Second Amendment in a way that makes sense for the whole structure the founders built.

Federalist No. 25 is essentially Hamilton answering a major anti-federalist fear. If you give the federal government the power to raise armies, they’ll create a permanent military and enslave the people. That fear wasn’t crazy for the era, the founders had just fought a war against an empire that used professional troops, military occupation, and coercion. So Hamilton takes that fear seriously, but, he argues, the proposed solutions are worse than the problem. And the anti-federalist solutions usually sounded like this, no standing army in peacetime, or a hard constitutional limit on the size of the army, or fixed restrictions that prevent the federal government from reacting quickly.

When Hamilton’s response was basically, look guys, you cannot predict threats in advance, so if you lock the nation into rigid rules, you guarantee you’ll be unprepared at the worst moment. Hamilton’s big theme in Federalist 25 is this, national defense can’t be run like a fixed-budget household plan, because threats don’t schedule themselves politely. He points out that nations don’t get to choose when they’re threatened, the size of a threat can change fast, the type of threat can change fast, and there are moments when delay is fatal. So Hamilton argues that a constitution, remember at this moment they’re trying to convince people to adopt this constitution, it hadn’t been adopted yet, were under the Articles of Confederation at the time.

So he’s arguing that a constitution that tries to micromanage defense with rigid limits is not wise, it’s fragile. And he’s also making a deeper point that if you force government to be weak, where strength is necessary, you don’t get liberty guys, you get vulnerability. And vulnerability invites conquest, either from outside powers or from internal chaos. And Hamilton goes after the idea that banning standing armies in peacetime is a safe safeguard. He argues, you can’t always tell when peacetime ends, until it’s too late. A nation may need preparedness before open war begins, and deterrence matters. Weakness invites aggression.

And then he basically says, look, guys, even if you prohibit an army, you’ll still need defenses, forts, ports, infrastructure, trained officers, and readiness. Otherwise your army sets the timetable, and you’re always behind. So Hamilton’s point isn’t, look, armies are good, his point is you can’t constitutionally handcuff your own survival. This is one of the most important themes here, and it’s a warning people ignored today. Hamilton argues that if you try to solve tyranny with paper restrictions alone, like hard caps or bans or rigid clauses, those restrictions won’t hold up under crisis. Because if an actual emergency hits, government will either break the rule, or find a workaround, or redefine terms, or expand interpretation.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before. These are all things we have dealt with in the last three presidencies. In other words, a crisis will always pressure the system. So Hamilton says, the better safeguard is not fake limitations, it’s structural checks. Meaning, division of power, legislative control, accountability to we the people, elections, and institutional friction. And this matters for the Second Amendment conversation, because the Second Amendment is not a paper restriction like no army allowed. It’s a deeper structural statement about where ultimate power rests. We’ll get there. And Hamilton’s key reassurance is this. Yes, the federal government must have the power to raise armies, but the Constitution does not give that power to one person unchecked.

The real check is Congress. And remember, Congress authorizes military creation, they fund it, they regulate it, and they can limit it through appropriations. They have the purse strings. And this is where Hamilton implicitly aligns with the Constitution’s design. The executive may command, but the legislature controls the money. And, and this is critical, the Constitution specifically requires that funding for armies cannot be appropriated for more than two years at a time. That’s not an accident. That’s the founders saying, look, even if you need an army, you don’t get to fund it permanently without the people’s representatives revisiting the decision.

So Hamilton’s argument is if the people don’t like what’s happening, they can change Congress. And Congress can’t defund or reshape the force. That’s the Republican safeguard. Accountability and power of the purse. Not Republican and Republican versus Democrat, but Republican type of government. And Hamilton’s tone in this paper is not subtle. He treats the idea of fixed size limits as unrealistic. Because it assumes that threats will always fit into your pre-written rule. It assumes that you can pre-calculate national security needs forever. And it assumes enemies will respect your constitutional boundaries. Now, Hamilton’s saying, look, your enemy is not bound by your paperwork.

So if you constitutionally cap your defense, you’re advertising to the world, here is exactly how far we can respond. And that’s not liberty. That’s an invitation for an invasion. And here’s where people kind of mess this up when they’re talking about this paper. The founders held two truths at the same time. Number one, the nation must be able to defend itself, including through professional forces when needed. And number two, standing armies can become tools of oppression if the people are powerless. Federalist 25 is Hamilton defending truth number one, that the necessity of a national defense power exists.

The Second Amendment speaks to truth number two, the people cannot be reduced to subjects. So the Second Amendment isn’t just about hunting or sport or even personal self-defense. It’s about the balance of power in a free republic. When the people are armed, trained, organized, and capable, government cannot treat them like conquered people. The public remains a real factor in the power equation, and a standing army is not the only force in the nation. That’s why the founding generation talks so much about militias and the body of the people and the danger of a monopoly on force.

Hamilton, even while defending the need for armies, is still operating inside the same worldview. That power must be checked. I think of it like having a two-key launch system, like you’re going to send a rocket into space. Two separate safeguards. Key number one, when they turn that one, it’s Congress controlling funding, where the army funding can’t be locked in permanently, remember every two years. And the people can vote and representatives can pull the plug. And then there’s Key 2 over here, which has to also be turned, and that’s the people retain the capacity to resist force.

That’s the Second Amendment. That a free people are not disarmed, and that the security of a free state isn’t outsourced entirely to the government, and that the public remains the ultimate backstop. Hamilton’s saying, don’t cripple defense with pretend limits. The founders are also saying, don’t cripple liberty by disarming the people. And put them together, it’s a system designed to prevent two disasters, being conquered from outside and being enslaved from within. Fast forward to today. We live in a time where government power has exploded through bureaucracies, regulatory enforcement, unelected rules, surveillance capacity, and selective prosecution.

And every time citizens raise concerns, their response is often, trust us. Federalist 25 would tell you, don’t trust paper promises, trust structure. And the Second Amendment is one of those structural guarantees, because it reinforces that government is not the only capable actor in the nation. When people say, well, you don’t need that, they’re making the exact kind of argument Hamilton warns about in a different form. They want to substitute their prediction of the future for your actual rights and preparedness. Hamilton says you can’t predict threats. The Second Amendment says you can’t outsource liberty. So let’s do Federalist 25 in one sentence.

A constitution that tries to restrict national defense with rigid limits will fail in real emergencies. So the safeguard must be structural accountability, not fantasy caps. And the Second Amendment correlation here is, if defense power must exist, then liberty requires that the people remain capable so that power never becomes a one-way street. What do you think about that? Thank you to Blackout Coffee for sponsoring the work that goes into this series. Guys, gals, let’s be honest, most major brands hate us and our values. That’s why I support Blackout Coffee. We’re a pro-America company. We don’t apologize for supporting freedom, other constitution, or the Second Amendment.

And our coffee is outstanding. It’s bold and smooth and roasted right here in America, down in Florida. Head on over to blackoutcoffee.com slash gng. Use code gng10 to save 10% on your order. Stop funding companies that hate us and drink Blackout Coffee. So back to the Federalist 25. If you got any value out of this breakdown, hit that like button, subscribe to the channel, and share this, please, with someone who thinks that the founders didn’t think about modern times. Because they did. They built a system that assumes that threats are real and power corrupts.

And liberty requires more than words on parchment. Drop a comment below. Let me know, do you think Congress still acts like a real check on federal power today? Or has that balance totally collapsed? Guys and gals, I appreciate each and every single one of you. Please stay armed, please stay free, and please take care of each other. I’ll see you on the next one. Take care. [tr:trw].

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