Federalist No. 26 Explained: What Really Guards Our Freedom

The Federalist Papers: Explained · Sep 10, 2026 · 29m

If a written ban on a peacetime army cannot keep a free people safe, then what can? This episode follows Hamilton as he answers that question, drawing a lesson from England's own history: even at the high tide of its liberty, England did not outlaw armies, it simply forced them under the control of an elected legislature. The real safeguard built into the new Constitution, he argues, is not a wall of words but a clock, the rule that army funding must be voted again every two years, out in the open, by representatives who have to answer to the voters, and watched the whole time by a rival…