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Bill of Rights: Tenth

Amendment X: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Understanding the Tenth Amendment

In a certain sense, the Tenth Amendment—the last of the 10 amendments that make up the Bill of Rights—is but a truism that adds nothing to the original Constitution. Since the federal government only possesses those powers which are delegated to it (Article I, Section 1), this amendment merely restates that all powers not delegated are in fact reserved to the States or to the sovereign people. In this sense, the Tenth Amendment concisely articulates the very idea and structure of a government of limited powers. The Tenth Amendment reinforces the federal system created by the Constitution and acts as a bulwark against federal intrusion on state authority and individual liberty. While the Supreme Court has countenanced a far-reaching expansion of federal power since the New Deal, Congress, as a co-equal branch of government, is not bound by these precedents and should uphold the concept of federalism embodied in this amendment. This essay is adapted from The Heritage Guide to the Constitution for a new series providing constitutional guidance for lawmakers.

The Tenth Amendment expresses the principle that undergirds the entire plan of the original Constitution: the national government possesses only those powers delegated to it. The Framers of the Tenth Amendment had two purposes in mind when they drafted it. The first was a necessary rule of construction. The second was to reaffirm the nature of the federal system. Because the Constitution created a government of limited and enumerated powers, the Framers initially believed that a bill of rights was not only unnecessary, but also potentially dangerous. State constitutions recognized a general legislative power in the state governments; hence, limits in the form of state bills of rights were necessary to guard individual rights against the excess of governmental power. The Constitution, however, conferred only the limited powers that were listed or enumerated in the federal Constitution. Because the federal government could not reach objects not granted to it, the Federalists originally argued, there was no need for a federal bill of rights. Further, the Federalists insisted that, under the normal rules of statutory construction, by forbidding the government from acting in certain areas, a bill of rights necessarily implied that the government could act in all other areas not forbidden to it. That would change the federal government from one of limited powers to one, like the states, of general legislative powers. Continue reading from Heritage Foundation

Reserved Powers

"The Tenth Amendment was intended to confirm the understanding of the people at the time the Constitution was adopted, that powers not granted to the United States were reserved to the States or to the people. It added nothing to the instrument as originally ratified." "The amendment states but a truism that all is retained which has not been surrendered. There is nothing in the history of its adoption to suggest that it was more than declaratory of the relationship between the national and state governments as it had been established by the Constitution before the amendment or that its purpose was other than to allay fears that the new national government might seek to exercise powers not granted, and that the states might not be able to exercise fully their reserved powers." That this provision was not conceived to be a yardstick for measuring the powers granted to the Federal Government or reserved to the states was firmly settled by the refusal of both Houses of Congress to insert the word “expressly” before the word “delegated,” and was confirmed by Madison’s remarks in the course of the debate, which took place while the proposed amendment was pending, concerning Hamilton’s plan to establish a national bank. “Interference with the power of the States was no constitutional criterion of the power of Congress. If the power was not given, Congress could not exercise it; if given, they might exercise it, although it should interfere with the laws, or even the Constitutions of the States.” Nevertheless, for approximately a century, from the death of [Chief Justice John] Marshall until 1937, the Tenth Amendment was frequently invoked to curtail powers expressly granted to Congress, notably the powers to regulate commerce, to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment, and to lay and collect taxes. In McCulloch v. Maryland, Marshall rejected the proffer of a Tenth Amendment objection and offered instead an expansive interpretation of the necessary and proper clause to counter the argument. Continue reading from Cornell Law School

Link to The Bill of Rights the Fight to Secure America's Liberties by Carol.Berkin in the Catalog
Link to In Defense of Liberty: The Story of America's Bill of Rights by Russell Freedman in the Catalog
Link to The Bill of Rights: A History in Documents by John Patrick in the Catalog
Link to Saving the Bill of Rights by Frank Miniter in the Catalog
Link to Freedom of Speech by David K. Shipler in the Catalog
Link to Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz in the Catalog
Link to The First Amendment Bubble: How Privacy and Paparazzi Threaten a Free Press by Amy Gajda in the Catalog
Link to The Bill Of Rights And Additional Amendments by Jeffrey Rogers Hummel in Hoopla
Link to Repeal The Second Amendment by Allan J. Lichtman in the Catalog
Link to Founding Rivals by Chris Derose in Hoopla
Link to Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution by John Paul Stevens in the Catalog
Link to The Hidden History of Guns and the Second Amendment by Thom Hartmann in the Catalog

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