What does amendment 10 mean

The sense of the Convention delegates was that a bill of rights, in the context of the federal Constitution, was unnecessary and even dangerous. It was considered unnecessary because the national government was a limited government that could only exercise those powers granted to it by the Constitution, and it had been granted no power to violate the most cherished rights of the people.

They even maintained that inclusion of a bill of rights would be dangerous, because it might suggest that the national government had powers that it had not actually been granted. For why declare that things shall not be done, which there is no power to do? Such a list might indirectly endanger any rights not included on it.

The Constitution accordingly sought to secure liberty through enumerations of powers to the government rather than through enumerations of rights to the people. Not everyone was convinced by these arguments. Indeed, the absence of a bill of rights threatened to derail ratification of the Constitution, especially in key states such as Massachusetts and Virginia. A number of states ratified the Constitution only on the express understanding that the document would quickly be amended to include a bill of rights.

The first Congress accordingly proposed twelve Amendments, the last ten of which were ratified in and now stand as the Bill of Rights. The first eight of those ratified Amendments identify various rights of the people involving such things as speech, religion, arms, searches and seizures, jury trials, and due process of law. The Tenth Amendment warns against using a list of rights to infer powers in the national government that were not granted.

Darby No law that would have been constitutional before the Tenth Amendment was ratified becomes unconstitutional simply because the Tenth Amendment exists. The only question posed by the Tenth Amendment is whether a claimed federal power was actually delegated to the national government by the Constitution, and that question is answered by studying the enumerated powers, not by studying the Tenth Amendment.

That was the understanding of the Supreme Court for nearly two centuries. Nonetheless, beginning in , a line of cases has emerged that seems to give substantive constitutional content to the Tenth Amendment.

In , in Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority , a narrow majority of the Supreme Court held that a city was required to comply with federal labor laws, and that state sovereignty interests should be protected by the participation of states in the national political process, rather than by judicially-enforced principles of federalism. However, while Garcia has never been explicitly overruled, in subsequent cases the Court has indeed found judicially-enforceable limits on the power of the federal government to regulate states and their political subdivisions directly.

United States , forcing state or local executive officials to implement federal laws, Printz v. Dole Interestingly, the Tenth Amendment has not been invoked by the Court to protect individual citizens against the exercise of federal power. Whether the Tenth Amendment actually is, or ought to be, serving as an independent source of constitutional principles of federalism is a matter of great controversy, both on and off the Court.

When initially added to the United States Constitution, the Tenth Amendment stood as a reminder of the continuing importance of states and of the foundational role of the people. The Amendment was significant not for the text it supplied, but for the structure it emphasized. That structure has evolved over time. Recently, the United States Supreme Court has sought to revive the Amendment, with unfortunate results. Kurtzman Lochner v. New York Loving v. Virginia Marbury v.

Madison McCulloch v. Maryland Miller v. California Miranda v. Arizona Near v. Minnesota Perry v. Schwarzenegger Powell v.

Alabama Regents of the University of California v. Bakke Roper v. Simmons Schenck v. United States Terry v. Ohio Texas v. Johnson Tinker v. Des Moines United States v. Lopez Worcester v. Georgia World Trade Center Bombing. Sign in. Log into your account. So they wrote the 10th Amendment to make sure that this was never the case.

The 10th Amendment clearly states that the federal government cannot take control of new powers or responsibilities by default. Instead, new powers or responsibilities are automatically given to either state governments or individuals.

It technically can, through Supreme Court decisions or Amendments. But the 10th Amendment has prevented the spread of federal power over the last few centuries. For example, US marriage laws regarding gay marriage are not up to the US federal government; they can only be debated and decided upon by state governments.

Furthermore, local law enforcement laws and regulations are currently under hot debate due to recent civil unrest. But the federal government cannot make decisions about these events, as police laws are left up to the state governments.