Federalist No. 29 Explained: The Citizen in Arms

The Federalist Papers: Explained · Oct 1, 2026 · 26m

The critics had a fresh fear: the new Constitution would let the federal government organize, arm, and call up the militia, and to them that was a second weapon aimed at the people, stacked on top of the standing army they already dreaded. Hamilton turns the fear completely inside out. A well-regulated militia, he argues, is not a threat sitting beside a standing army; it is the very thing that makes a standing army unnecessary. This episode walks through what a militia actually was in early America, why you cannot afford to drill an entire nation into soldiers, why Hamilton wanted a small…