If you want more deep dives like this, founding era receipts that explain today’s fights, hit subscribe, smash the like, and let’s welcome back to the channel. I’m Jared, this is Guns N’ Gadgets, and we’re going to continue our run through the Federalist Papers, because the more you read these, the more you realize that the founders weren’t guessing. They were warning us. Now Federalist 27, again written by Alexander Hamilton, is basically a reality check essay about one big question the Anti-Federalists were hammering at the time. If we create a stronger national government, what stops it from becoming tyrannical? And what makes anyone obey it? Now Hamilton’s answer is simple, but it’s also loaded.

People will obey laws they believe are legitimate, and they’ll resist laws they believe are illegitimate. That idea is everywhere in American’s constitutional DNA, and it connects directly to the Second Amendment more than most people realize. To understand Federalist 27, you have to understand the fear of the time. Under the Articles of Confederation, a national government was weak. It couldn’t enforce its own decisions very well, and it relied on the states to cooperate. So when the Constitution was proposed, critics said, if the federal government can make laws directly over individuals, won’t it need a massive enforcement machine? Won’t it have to use military force to compel obedience? Isn’t that how tyranny begins? And that’s the core Anti-Federalist anxiety.

Consolidated power becomes coercion. And Hamilton’s job in Federalist 27 is to lower the temperature and say, like, hold on, guys and gals. That’s not how this works in a free society. He argues that Federal laws won’t need constant brute force, because most people comply most of the time when they see that laws are fair, necessary, and consistent with the public good. He’s describing something that we all recognize today, that legitimacy is fuel, right? When a public believes that the government is acting within its rightful authority, enforcement becomes easier because compliance is largely voluntary.

Hamilton is saying that if the new federal government is properly constituted, it’s representative in nature and accountable, then federal laws will be perceived as the people’s own laws, not the commands of some distant ruler. And he makes an important point here. In America, officials are not kings. They might not remember, they might not remember that as well. I was trying to say in DC, but they’re not foreign occupiers. They are selected from the community and they answer to elections. So the obedience Hamilton is talking about is in blind submission. It’s the natural result of a government operating with consent.

But here’s the key that people can miss here is Hamilton is describing what happens when a government stays within its limits. Because the moment government stops being legitimate, when it becomes arbitrary or hostile or abusive, the social contract breaks down. And that’s where the Second Amendment conversation comes in. The Second Amendment isn’t just a line in the Bill of Rights. It’s part of an entire theory of government that says government derives power from the people and rights exist prior to government. And when the government violates these rights, it loses legitimacy. And do we have an illegitimate government right now? If you look at that.

Hamilton and Fairwell’s 27 is basically saying a free people obey legitimate laws because they recognize them as lawful and proper. But that implies something even more important. A free people do not owe obedience to unlawful power. Let me say that again. A free people do not owe obedience to unlawful power. That’s not a call into chaos. It’s a principle. And the Second Amendment is tied into that principle because it presumes that the people retain ultimate sovereignty and the people must never be reduced to helpless subjects. In the Founders worldview, disarmament wasn’t a public safety policy.

Disarmament was a political strategy used by regimes to make resistance impossible. So when modern governments push laws that treat a constitutional right like a privilege, like something you earn or beg for or can be taxed into submission, that’s not just a policy debate. That’s a legitimacy crisis. And legitimacy, according to Hamilton in Federalist 27, is what makes peaceful compliance possible in the first place. Hamilton also tackles the claim that the federal government would have to use military force to enforce laws. He argues that fear is exaggerated because enforcement doesn’t begin with soldiers.

It begins with courts, magistrates, local officers, and normal civil process. But here’s the uncomfortable truth in 2026. A lot of Americans are watching executive agencies create rules that function like laws without Congress, then enforce them like laws through administrative penalties, prosecutions, and pressure campaigns. That is exactly the kind of drift that makes people stop seeing the government as their own. And if the government stops being ours, then Hamilton’s entire model, voluntary compliance based on legitimacy, starts to fall apart. Which leads to the next concept, the spirit of the people. Hamilton believes Americans are not passive.

He assumes that if the federal government becomes abusive, Americans won’t just shrug. The public spirit will resist. I argue that for generations, Americans have been passive, and we haven’t resisted. We’ve just shrugged our shoulders. Now, Hamilton isn’t writing about a how-to guide, if you will. He’s making an argument about human nature and political reality. In a republic like ours, the people are not livestock. In a free society, public opinion constrains government, and representatives who ignore that reality lose their power, ideally. Now, this is one reason that the Second Amendment matters even when it’s never used, because it represents a structural fact that the people are not powerless.

That changes the political equation, and it always has. That’s also why the Supreme Court’s modern Second Amendment framework matters so much, because it forces government back to first principles. If a right is fundamental, it’s not negotiable based on, you know, we think this would be safer. We don’t like that. It must be justified within the Constitution’s original meaning and our historical tradition. When government ignores that and they invent permissive structures, it’s not just regulating objects, it’s regulating the citizen’s status and turning rights into privileges. And when that happens, it is happening.

Compliance doesn’t grow, it collapses. Federalist 27 is a simple essay, a warning, with a heavy message. A government that respects its limits will be obeyed with relative ease, because it is seen as legitimate. A government that treats the people like subjects, like it is right now, eventually needs more force, because it has less consent. So when you see modern officials pushing bans and registries and backdoor prohibitions, selective enforcement, or rights for me but not for the rules, you’re not just watching policy, you’re watching the legitimacy that Hamilton relied on being drained out of the system.

And that’s why the Second Amendment isn’t isolated. It’s connected to the whole architecture of American liberty. It reinforces the principle that the citizen is not a subject and the government is not the master. Now, I want to thank the sponsor first. Blackout Coffee, this is the Blackout Coffee Studios. They are supporting this whole endeavor of all the history I’m diving into, all the work that goes behind the scenes. So I ask you, if you love America and you love your coffee strong, check us out at Blackout Coffee. We’re not your average store-bought brew, guys and gals, premium small batch roasted.

You get it within two to three days of it coming out of our roaster. We ship it within two to three days, and then however long it takes the delivery system to get it to you, but it’s shipped fresh. It doesn’t get any fresher than two to three days out of the roaster. Every bag is roasted fresh so that you’re not getting coffee that’s been sitting on shelves. You’re getting bold, rich flavor delivered straight to your door. And when you support us at Blackout Coffee, you’re supporting a company that proudly backs the United States Constitution, the Second Amendment, and hardworking Americans.

So start your mornings the right way, with coffee that tastes just like freedom feels. Blackoutcoffee.com slash gng. You can use my code gng10 to save on your order, and I appreciate all of your support. So that’s Federalist 27. Hamilton’s argument that free people obey legitimate power and that legitimacy is the real engine of law. And now, like I do in every one of these videos, I have a question to ask you. Do you think the federal government today still acts like it understands consent of the governed? Or does it increasingly act like compliance is something it can manufacture through pressure and prosecution? Drop your thoughts in the comments down below.

And if you want me to keep going, Federalist 28 is next, hit subscribe, hit the like button, and share this with somebody who thinks the Federalist Papers are irrelevant. Because the more that you read them, the more that you understand them, the more you realize they were writing about us right now. I’ll see you on the next one. Take care. [tr:trw].

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