by Jack Ward
Most of us have a cursory knowledge of the U.S. Constitution and that the Bill of Rights are the first ten amendments to the Constitution. But few know any of the amendments other than the first (freedom of speech) and the second (gun rights).
But one amendment has been totally ignored by our political leaders. The forgotten amendment is the tenth amendment which enumerates the rights of states and the people.
The tenth amendment of the U.S. Constitution is quite simple. It states: “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.â€
Simply stated, it says that the power granted to the federal government is limited and all other powers are bestowed to the states or the people. The powers granted to the federal government are listed in the first three articles of the Constitution.
You might be amazed to find out that no where in the U.S. Constitution does it give the federal government the power to regulate the temperature in your house, manage your health care, educate your children, or a myriad of things the federal government wants to control.
If our legislators want to expand federal powers to include these things, they can do it through the amendment process. The U.S. Constitution has been amended 27 times, so change is possible.
The overreaching of our Congress Critters, complicit judges, and presidents has been known and ignored for years. To reign in the abuses to the Constitution, Congressman John Shadegg (R-AZ) has proposed legislation to identify those legislators that create these non-constitutional provisions. Of course our Congress Critters wouldn’t consider it.
When former Senator John Glenn (D-OH) was asked about limiting legislation to those provisions allowed in the U.S. Constitution, he was reported to say, “If we passed this, we wouldn’t have anything to do.â€
Texas Governor Rick Perry addressed the unconstitutional expansion of the federal government and the violation of the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution when he said, “I believe that our federal government has become oppressive in its size, its intrusion into the lives of our citizens, and its interference with the affairs of our state. That is why I am here today to express my unwavering support for efforts all across our country to reaffirm the states’ rights affirmed by the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I believe that returning to the letter and spirit of the U.S. Constitution and its essential 10th Amendment will free our state from undue regulations, and ultimately strengthen our Union.â€
I would hope that more governors would have the guts to follow Governor Perry’s lead.
Early in the 1800′s President Thomas Jefferson must have envisioned these abuses when he said: “…..we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.â€
Jefferson recognized the growing problem over 200 years ago. He would be horrified to see how our current politicians have high-jacked our Constitution.
Imagine if the Congress, Courts, and President would honor their oath to abide with the powers enumerated in the Constitution. We could have part time Congress and we wouldn’t have the federal government meddling in our lives. This could unshackle the American free enterprise system and would usher in a new era of economic prosperity that these government meddlers could never achieve.
Jack Ward [send him email] has lived in Santa Cruz, CA for 4+ decades and has written several hundred opinion pieces in local newspapers to the consternation of leftwing local activists.
Copyright by Jack Ward
yea uhh it pretty much sucks everyone DOSENT want to do said thing of actually ABIDING by the U.S. Constitution tho
amazing…i took ap gov last year, and although we talked about the imperial presidency and the abuses of congress, we just ignored the tenth amendment. It just seemed to weak to support any of the actions that are happening today. It’s nice to know that at least some members of government are still willing to give power to the people.
I just want to point out that this isn’t a new thing. George Washington was the first president to break this by creating the bank. The supreme court agreed with the elastic clause found in section 8, clause 18 which states:
“The Congress shall have Power – To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.”
The supreme court interprets this as saying, it is good for America, the federal government can do it. In situations where this is called into question, such as setting the drinking age to 21, the federal government had to threaten all of the states with losing their federal funding for interstates seeing as how the federal government could not actually impose that law.
The entire Bill of Rights is a redundant appendage added to the constitution which actually has resulted in weakening it by turning the entire document on its head.
The purpose of the US Constitution was to strictly enumerate the legitimate functions that the federal government could legally undertake. It was in fact the citizens granting the federal government a few enumerated “rights.” If it wasn’t enumerated in the document, then the federal goverment was operating ouside of its legally confined boundarys.
Then some idiots decided to “improve it” by adding a “bill of rights” that the federal government was supposedly going to return to the people as some kind of favor????
The federal government has no enumerated power to grant or deny rights to anyone. This is tanamount to the janitor(the federal government) granting priviledges and rights to the board of directors (…and we the citizens are indeed the board of directors of the federal government)
I have a question it might be alittle off this subject but is a very good question in my mind. If the 10 amendment allows the state to declare soverenty from the federal goverment for passing laws that are not granted in the constitution. How is it that the state can do the same thing and not be held accountable for violateing my second amendment rights? For instance I live in California and constantly are second amendment rights are being attacked by the puplic safety commity. And it seems that the people don’t have a voice here Im getting sick of this blatant attack on my second amendment rights. Were is it in the constitution that holds the states accountable to the constitution?
Jeff: – this is an extremely important question, and I feel your pain living here in CA as well.
First of all, we have to recognize the source of the problem – and that’s the fact that the federal government has created a situation where gun regulation is almost encouraged. Get rid all the federal interference on everything from guns to pot to marriage and everything in between, and we’ll be able to focus our efforts properly and reduce the change of this happening on a local level.