Federalist No. 80

Federalist No. 80 (Federalist Number 80) is an essay by Alexander Hamilton and the eightieth of The Federalist Papers. It was published on June 21, 1788 under the pseudonym Publius, the name under which all The Federalist Papers were published. It is titled "The Powers of the Judiciary," and it is the third in a series of six essays discussing the powers and limitations of the judicial branch.

Publius begins this essay by describing five areas that the federal Judiciary ought to have jurisdiction over: First, cases which arise out of the laws of the United States; Second, cases which arise out of provisions of the proposed United States Constitution; Third, cases in which the United States is a party; Fourth, all cases that involve "the peace of the confederacy;" and Fifth, all cases that originate on the high seas. He then addresses each of these points in turn. Federalist No. 80, the “Powers of the Judiciary”, published on June 21, 1788, explains the powers and limitations of the judicial branch of the United States government. Hamilton offers five specific principles or situations in which the judiciary should have jurisdiction to overrule state laws and explains why the federal court should hold such responsibilities.

As to the first set of cases, Publius explains that in a Union, there will necessarily be certain things that the States are prohibited from doing, such as the prohibition on coining money. Given this, he states that there must be some way for the federal government to enforce these prohibitions, and so it must be the authority of federal courts to overrule improper action by the States. As he puts it, “the States, by the plan of the convention, are prohibited from doing a variety of things, some of which are incompatible with the interests of the Union, and others with the principles of good government.” In other words, the interests of the whole nation require certain limits on the states. Hamilton offers the example of coining money, which was forbidden to the states but was done anyway. The only logical way to prevent such violations was to allow federal courts to hear such cases, since state courts would presumably rule in favor of their own state.[1]

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