Federalist No. 28


Federalist No. 28 is an essay attributed to Alexander Hamilton, the twenty-eighth of The Federalist Papers. It was published in The Independent Journal on December 26, 1787 under the pseudonym Publius, the name under which all The Federalist papers were published. This is the last of three essays discussing the threat to the common good stemming from excessive restraint on legislative authority. It is titled "The Same Subject Continued: The Idea of Restraining the Legislative Authority in Regard to the Common Defense Considered".
Publius argues that rebellion is always a possibility with any government. In a Union, if the rebellion is small the state government may deal with it, but if insurrection involves an entire state then the national government must respond.
If a state government betrays the people and usurps power, the local governments will not have the power or capability to respond to it. However, the more the people understand their rights and want to defend those rights, the harder it will be for state governments to usurp power and betray the people. If state governments usurp too much power, the federal government will be more likely to step in to curb the abuse, because the federal government wants to protect its own power.