23, titled "The Necessity of a Government as Energetic as the One Proposed to the Preservation of the Union", is a political essay written by Alexander Hamilton and the twenty-third of The Federalist Papers.

This entry shifted the focus of the series, beginning an extended analysis of the proposed constitution and its provisions regarding commerce and national defense.

23 and the ratification of the constitution, the federal government of the United States has expanded significantly in scope, and the debate over governmental power in regard to national defense has persisted throughout American history.

Publius identifies the principal purposes of the federal government: common defense, preservation of peace, regulation of commerce, and foreign affairs.

Publius goes on to argue that there are benefits to empowering the federal government in regard to defense, saying that it allows a centralized organization and that it will defend the entire nation rather than individual states.

[3]: 85 Hamilton considered four subjects to be the "principal purposes" of forming a federal government: national defense, internal security, regulation of commerce, and foreign relations.

[5] He concerned himself with practical considerations over theoretical ones, and he was against any restriction on governmental power that might prevent it from fulfilling these purposes.

[6]: 840  Hamilton believed that this power should be unrestrained because the types of threats that a nation may face are unpredictable and that the United States would need to adapt its defense to respond to different situations.

23 was in direct contradiction with the constitution that The Federalist Papers championed, which was written to only include enumerated powers.

[3]: 86 Compared to the previous essays, Hamilton took a stronger stance on federal powers over defense in Federalist No.

[10]: 37  With these issues, Hamilton determined that the United States must utilize the traditional means of government rather than try to invent a new mode of operations.

23 in his sixth entry of the Anti-Federalist Papers to prove that some federalists admit to the unrestrained power of the government under the proposed constitution.