Most articles that seek to demonize the Tenth Amendment movement are so rife with logical and intellectual fallacies that even responding to them is a waste of time. However, in the case of Dan Casey, blogger for the Roanoke Times, an exception must be made.

For starters, Casey is writing in my (and Thomas Jefferson’s) home state of Virginia, and his piece, “The Whole Tenth Amendment Business is Dumb and Crazy” actually links to the Virginia Tenth Amendment Center, which I helped to found.

But, more importantly, in his article, Casey attempts to smear the brilliant men who wrote the U.S. Constitution by claiming the document doesn’t mean what they explicitly said it meant.

As James Madison might have said, there is a host of proofs that Dan Casey is dead wrong.

Like so many others before him, Casey leads his attack with a flaccid attempt to discredit the “Tenthers” (as he pejoratively calls them) by linking constitutionalism with support for slavery.

Of course, this completely obscures actions by Tenthers of an earlier era, who used the 10th Amendment as the prime justification for the “States Rights” argument that itself was a smokescreen for the real cause of the Civil War — the South’s insistence on preserving slavery.

Behold straw man number one: The Tenth Amendment is code for racism. Casey is either ignorant of the fact that many Northern states used the Tenth Amendment as a justification for undermining slavery long before 1861, through their refusal to enforce the Fugitive Slave Acts, or he has chosen to ignore that inconvenient part of history. 

Either way, it doesn’t matter. Historical accuracy is not Casey’s goal. He merely intends to color his readers’ perception of Tenthers by linking them, however spuriously, with Southern slaveholders. To acknowledge the truth about the history of states’ rights in the North might disrupt his narrative of unquestioning obsequiousness to centralized power.

Casey continues:

But apart from aligning themselves with slaveholders, there’s another more fundamental flaw in the whole modern Tenther argument. In a nutshell, it’s this: Their interpretation is based on a single sentence in the Constitution, rather than on the document as a whole.

In fact, the larger document directly contradicts the Tenthers’ argument.  That’s right — words the founding fathers quite deliberately wrote into the Constitution clearly and effectively rebut the Tenthers’ faulty reasoning.

It’s hard to imagine where Casey got this impression, considering that James Madison himself described the document he helped to write by saying

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the state governments are numerous and indefinite.

Thomas Jefferson also knew the Tenth Amendment was more than just “a single sentence.” He called it the Constitution’s foundation: 

I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: All powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people.

It really cannot be any clearer than that. The self-serving opinions of Dan Casey and myriad federal judges notwithstanding, if the people and the states didn’t explicitly surrender a power in the Constitution, then they still retain it. Whether or not they choose to exercise it is another story.

But if federal power is limited to what is enumerated in the Constitution, Casey asks, why do we need a Bill of Rights at all?

The problem for the Tenthers here is that the First Amendment has nothing to do with what Congress can do. It’s all about what Congress can’t do.

And this is where the Tenthers’ entire argument falls apart. Because under Tenther-logic, unless the Constitution permitted the feds to establish religion, or abridge freedom of speech and so on, then the feds would automatically be prohibited from doing it.

Obviously, the founding fathers themselves did not believe that, or they never would have felt the need to write the First Amendment in the first place.

Here Casey has a point, although not the one he thinks. He is right, the feds are automatically prohibited from doing any of the things he lists, just as they are prohibited from requiring every American to buy health insurance, based on the fact that those powers are not delegated under Article 1 Section 8.  

But, more importantly, many of the founders themselves argued against the Bill of Rights for the same reason as Casey: It should not be necessary. 

Alexander Hamilton said

…bills of rights… are not only unnecessary in the proposed constitution, but would even be dangerous. …For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? 

If there is any argument to be made against the Tenth Amendment, it is Hamilton, not Casey, who has made it.

The Bill of Rights should never have been needed. Every one of the first 10 Amendments is essentially legally redundant based on the text of the Constitution itself.

But, over time, activist judges and complicit politicians have turned the entire document on its head, until the only rights left to the people are those explicitly granted, while the only powers not yet claimed by government are those explicitly prohibited.

Yet Casey calls Tenthers, who only want the Constitution’s clear language enforced, ”intellectual boobs who can’t be bothered to think for themselves.” Apparently, thinking for oneself means ignoring the purpose of our founding documents, and gratefully acquiescing to federal tyranny.

Those of us who demand liberty are feared and ridiculed by weak minded men like Dan Casey who consider themselves intelligent, but are really nothing more than errand boys for the State.

As Samuel Adams once said

If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.

There is a line from a pop song that goes, “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose…”, but is that Freedom? Is it the ability to do whatever you want to do? “If it feels good, do it?” Is that Freedom? I think before we agree to fight for it, we should agree what it is we are fighting for so we can decide if it is worth it. In other words, what are you willing to sacrifice to secure it, not only for yourself, but for future generations?

The leaders of the movement that led to our founding were made up of successful financially secure people who risked everything for liberty. The World War II generation sacrificed personal ambition for the idea of freedom. I think that same sentiment is in us today. For example, while doing some precinct walking I talked to a woman whose husband works for the city. While talking about the different candidates she lowered her voice and pointed to her neighbors “Vote no on 60, 61, and 101” yard sign and said in a hushed tone, we are voting yes on those, even though it may mean my husband would lose his job. On that same measure, I have a friend who works for the government who said the same thing. These people equate tax relief to freedom, and are willing to risk their livelihood for it.

Would any of the above have sacrificed anything for “if it feels good, do it?” I don’t think so. I believe that what all of those people wanted was the ability to self-govern. Reading the words of the founders and you will find references such as:

“But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint… Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains on their own appetites.”
Edmund Burk

*******

“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.” John Adams

But today, any time morals are brought up; people immediately jump to their views on the “social” issues of the day as if these issues defined morality. How about greed, unchecked ambitions, integrity, aren’t these the moral issues that have had such a profound effect on our society? Take the on-going housing crises, when you really look at it, its roots are found in ambitious politicians passing laws to force banks to make loans to people who couldn’t pay them back, greedy banks using government guarantees on those loans to bundle bad loans into securities and selling them as derivatives, none of which would have mattered if people would have had a little integrity and not taken out a loan they could not pay back because they thought they would be able to resell the home in a year or two for a quick buck.

So today, while all three of these groups who brought this mess on us point fingers of blame at each other, the average American is waking up to the fact that there is a problem, and something is very wrong. We know instinctively that something has been lost, and that we have to accept not only our own culpability in this crisis, but the burden of getting it back. Freedom will not be won by quibbling over whatever wedge issues are put before us to divide us; it will only be regained when “we the people” restore the true meaning of the words “freedom” and “liberty”. For only then will we be willing to sacrifice our material comforts to win it back for ourselves and our posterity. Freedom is not “nothing left to lose”, it is not self-indulgence and it is not “free”.

I joined the Tenth Amendment Center last year because I believe there is no hope to be found in Washington DC, even if the Tea Party candidates get elected, the reform will be slow if at all, as each one will have to choose between being a “gadfly” or going native and trying to sell the art of “compromise” to their soon to be bewildered base as they explain “this is how it’s done” while defending a bad bill they voted for. How many of these new activist will stay determined to work the system after the certain betrayal of at least of few of the new politicians who sell out for power. I may be cynical, but it’s only because I remember the “Contract with America” in 1994, and how the Demacrats wailed and gnashed their teeth over the Patriot Act in 2005 only to vote to continue it in 2009, or maybe it was after I listened to a surprisingly honest Tom Tancredo as he talked about the tactics GOP party leaders used on Republican law makers to tow the party line with the Medicaid D vote.

The Tenth Amendment Center takes the fight to a more local level, our State House District and Senators, and although there is pressure from above put on these politicians as well, our opportunity to engage these people is much higher. While passing out fliers at the Health Freedom Rally, I talked to State Senator Greg Brophy who told me thank you for being active, and asked that we continue to put the pressure on if the Republicans took the Assembly in the upcoming election. He understands these problems are not a partisan issue. And while I believe there are some real leaders in the State Senate,I agree with Joseph Farah who wrote in. “The Tea Party Manifesto”

“What conservative activists need to understand – because they are good people who need to be involved in the constructive process of moving the Country forward – is that politicians follow; they do not lead.”

You see it is “we the people”, who have been more concerned with getting our piece of the pie then fulfilling our moral obligation of passing true freedom to the next generation, who will need to carry the load of getting us back on track. We cannot wait for a Political Hero to swoop in and save us from ourselves. In Colorado, that means supporting the minority of State legislators who share our vision of America and give them the courage to use the principles of 98 to interpose the Sovereign State of Colorado between an out of control Federal Government and its freedom loving citizens. We need to understand how difficult it will be and that things may get worse before they get better, but have the courage of our convictions that we should bear the burdens of our own inequities instead of passing them to the next generation.

History will tell future generations if we were up to the task at hand, if were willing to pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor. Look yourself in the mirror and instead of asking what you “can” do, ask what you “will” do. What sacrifices are you willing to make to secure freedom not only for yourself, but for your posterity?

Geoff Broughton [send him email] is the State Chapter Coordinator for the Colorado Tenth Amendment Center

Copyright © 2010 by TenthAmendmentCenter.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given

The following op-ed was published in the Standard Examiner on Sunday, 10-10-10:

Consider for a moment a horrible scenario which unfortunately is far too common in the world today: an abusive, domineering husband whose timid wife fears for her safety, yet is so paralyzed that she dare not risk an attempt to flee. If the couple has any children, there likely exists a much greater incentive to attempt to persuade the husband to change his behavior; abandoning the family, or attempting to escape with the children, is a scenario few such women entertain, let alone successfully execute.

This all-too-real example also serves as a parable for the relationship between the federal government and the several states. Whereas all parties joined hands in a solemn union under a clear and concise contract, the federal government has since that time repeatedly and relentlessly abused the terms of our contract, and has forced its will upon the states and the American people. Failure to comply with these federal edicts subjects the offending individual to fines, prison time, or both, and subjects states to a loss of the federal funding to which they have become addicted. In extreme cases of controversial conflict, the federal government backs up its mandates with physical force using the armed forces.

The states have taken these sustained assaults with only rare objections. In the past few years, many have begun to pass “Tenth Amendment Resolutions” (or “State Sovereignty Resolutions”) to request or encourage that the federal government only pass laws for which it has constitutional authority. These pleas have unsurprisingly fallen on deaf ears, and despite the peaceful petitions, the abuse keeps coming. Nevertheless, they have served as warning for potential action if the grievances are not satisfactorily dealt with.

As one example, in the 2009 legislative session the Utah Legislature unanimously passed H.R. 4, a non-biding resolution regarding the federal REAL ID Act of 2005 which opposed the “costly unfunded mandate” saddling Utahns and the state government with nearly $10 billion in expenses over the next decade. Escalating the issue beyond mere asking, in this year’s session the legislature overwhelmingly passed H.B. 234, which opted Utah out of the REAL ID Act. In that bill, which Governor Herbert signed into law, the legislature agreed that the federal law “was adopted in violation of the principles of federalism contained in the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.”

In this specific case, Utah joined over two dozen other states opposing this unconstitutional and oppressive law–one which had no constitutional authority, and which sought to impose all financial obligations on the states. Having previously warned the federal government to cease and desist, Utah stood its ground and firmly said “NO” to the law. The focal point for this resistance was and is the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which reads that “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.” Some have considered this statement to be a mere truism — a redundant constitutional provision which carries no inherent meaning or importance–but history supports the rebuttal that it can’t really be true since those reserved powers have too often been arrogated by the federal government despite what the Constitution says to the contrary.

On this, the 10th day of the 10th month of the 10th year in this millennium, every freedom-loving citizen should take a moment to ponder how the Tenth Amendment — the “foundation of the Constitution” as Thomas Jefferson once wrote — can be further upheld, and the federal government appropriately restrained.

While asking nicely is often an important first step, abusive behavior often requires an escalated response. Given the general attitude that the union of states should be preserved rather than one or more of them fleeing for safety, emphasis should therefore be placed on how to firmly (and sometimes forcefully) demand that the abusive behavior stop.

Too often, like the seemingly powerless, abused wife who fears for the well-being of herself and her children, the states fear standing up to the federal government and resisting its aggression. As the Declaration of Independence states, “…all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”

To remedy this sad state of affairs, Utah and all other states should actively explore methods — whether through resolutions, interposition, nullification, etc. — of giving teeth to the Tenth Amendment, and successfully defending ourselves against federal aggression.

Our fiscal stability, our personal prosperity, and our pursuit of happiness depend upon it.

Connor Boyack [send him mail] is the state chapter coordinator for the Utah Tenth Amendment Center. He is a web developer, political economist, and budding philanthropist trying to change the world one byte at a time. He lives in Utah with his wife and son. Read his blog.

The history of the tenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides an insightful look into the fears and concerns shared by the founders of this nation. In the Federalist/Anti-Federalist duel over the nature of the proposed federal government and the Constitution’s ability to both empower and restrain it, some individuals proved more prescient than others in warning about the creature exceeding the powers of its creators and continually assuming new authority.

It was hoped that the plain language of the last amendment in the Bill of Rights would clearly affirm the fidelity with which officials must adhere to the Constitution. Its language is succinct and its meaning clear: any powers not delegated to the federal government are denied it, and thus reserved to the states and to the people.

Interestingly, this amendment has become commonly referred to as a “truism”—a statement which is obviously true, and which provides no new insight or meaning. Examples of truisms are “where there is smoke, there is fire”, “torture is barbaric”, and “abuse of power comes as no surprise”. The Supreme Court stated in 1931, in United States v. Sprague, that the tenth amendment “added nothing to the [Constitution] as originally ratified.” A decade later, they similarly wrote:

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…

If the denial to the federal government of any undelegated power is indeed a truism, then why has that entity repeatedly exercised authority for powers it was never given by the states? It is because the tenth amendment is a false truism: a statement to which many give lip service, but in which few truly believe. In short, it is not true. History, of course, bears out the reality that it indeed is untrue, despite its plain language and generally understood implications. It should be true, and ideally would indeed be little more than an unnecessary truism.

Ignored though it may be, the tenth amendment provides advocates of limited government and state sovereignty a fulcrum upon which to hinge their efforts. We can and should work to make this amendment a truism in fact—a statement that is largely unnecessary, because internal and external restraints force the federal government to operate only within the powers delegated in the Constitution.

Connor Boyack [send him mail] is the state chapter coordinator for the Utah Tenth Amendment Center. He is a web developer, political economist, and budding philanthropist trying to change the world one byte at a time. He lives in Utah with his wife and son. Read his blog.

Anyone who has ever participated in an online discussion forum knows that, sooner or later, all political debates are reduced to analogies of Hitler or Nazism. This self-evident fact of human existence is unofficially known as Godwin’s Law.

But for those of us who believe in the Constitution, specifically its Tenth Amendment and the spirit in which it was ratified, there is another law; one that says, sooner or later, all debates will be reduced to charges of intolerance, racism, or some variation on that theme. Call it DiLorenzo’s Law.

Ostensibly, these charges are leveled because “states’ rights” and the Tenth Amendment have been used in the past to justify gross violations of basic individual freedom and liberty. Which is absolutely true. From slavery to Jim Crow to poll taxes, there is no question that state governments in every part of the country have legislated in discriminatory and harmful ways against their own citizens.

But it is also important to realize that bad laws and regrettable history do not themselves discredit the decentralized, federalist structure of our Constitution. Rather, they are an indictment of bad government and its limitless potential for harm; prime examples of the injustice that inevitably results from arbitrary power.

Which is exactly why a strong Tenth Amendment remains so vital. It would be foolish to think we can trust the federal government to act in accordance with freedom at all times, any more than we can trust the governments of each state to do so. Just ask the Sioux and the Cherokee. Or Japanese-Americans in 1942.

The best protection for liberty is a stiff and dynamic political competition between the states, and between states and the federal government, that allows for ideas to flourish or die on their merits. In that way, Americans cannot ever become permanently trapped by authoritarianism at any level.

However, for such competition to exist, states must retain their power to act as sovereign political units. That includes the ability of voters to judge for themselves through their elected officials the constitutional limits of federal authority within a given state, nullifying those laws that exceed Congress’s enumerated powers. When, as is the case today, five justices on the Supreme Court are allowed to impose their expansive view of central authority on the entire country, they are just five federal foxes guarding a hen house of 300 million taxpayers.

That is why, in order to protect its citizens from federal usurpation, the ultimate tool of each sovereign state must be its power to leave the Union altogether. Without that power to withdraw their consent, voters are nothing more than human cash machines residing in administrative fiefdoms of the central government.

But try explaining a concept as basic as “consent of the governed” to the average statist, and you will almost certainly be told that America already settled this question in 1865.

Except force of arms cannot settle questions of natural law, it can only postpone them. Given that the Constitution itself was ratified as a voluntary contract between the states for their mutual benefit, with no Perpetuity Clause or binding third party arbitration, the citizens of the southern states (the vast majority of whom did not own slaves) were not only morally, but legally, justified when they chose to void their participation in 1861. (Maybe even more so than the original slave-owning colonists had been in their secession from Great Britain in 1776.)

And while a desire to preserve the system of chattel slavery clearly did play an important role in the South’s decision to secede, it is really a case of doing the right thing for the worst possible reasons. Only sheer ignorance or intellectual dishonesty would lead someone to claim that support for the legality of peaceful secession is still tantamount to support for slavery. (Ever heard of Quebec?) They are two completely separate issues.

But, rather than acknowledge his total lack of constitutional authority to prevent any state’s peaceful secession, potentially saving 600,000 American lives, President Lincoln “preserved” the formerly voluntary Union with the bloody force of his federal boot heel. And did lasting dictatorial violence to the very Constitution he had sworn to protect. It was not until later that history sought to hide these facts, ascribing to a cynical politician and inveterate racist the ironic moral camouflage of “Great Emancipator.”

It is due largely to the dichotomy between Lincoln’s words and his actions, and to the crucial distinction between secession’s legality and slavery’s injustice, that people still hold such conflicting opinions and beliefs regarding one of our nation’s most complex and painful eras. And why those who call for state sovereignty now often find themselves accused of racism, or in the awkward position of attempting to rationalize the inexcusable.

The truth is that the confusion on both sides is wholly unnecessary because American society has changed permanently, and for the better, since the days of Lincoln. Far from seeking to perpetuate a rigid class system or forced servitude, today’s New Federalists come in every skin color and desire only to be left alone by the federal government, to conduct their lives and businesses as they see fit.

They no more need to defend slavery or segregation to support state sovereignty than peaceful Muslims need to defend terrorism to support Islam.

Despite some disgusting perversions, the Tenth Amendment, indeed our entire Constitution, has always been fundamentally about maximizing individual freedom through the greatest possible decentralization of corruptible power. Just as no reasonable person today would condone enslaving another human being, so none of us could reasonably believe that power sufficient to coerce the obedience of 300 million people can ever be trusted in the hands of 537 self-serving politicians and nine unelected bureaucrats.

Before we can regain our national spirit of self-determination, Americans of all political stripes will have to better understand their own history, taking from it what is right and noble, while leaving behind what was not. Freedom is always a risk in the future, but it’s time we made peace with our past.

Josh is a proud “tenther”, freelance writer, and activist originally from the Washington, D.C. area.

This article appeared in the DC Examiner on November 17, 2009.

Friends of federalism cheered last month when the Obama administration reversed the Bush policy of prosecuting medical marijuana cases in states that have legalized the practice. Welcome though that change was, let’s hold the applause.

Not yet a year into his administration, Obama’s record on 10th Amendment issues is already clear: He’ll let the states have their way when their policies please blue team sensibilities and he’ll call in the feds when they don’t. Thus, he’ll grant California a waiver to allow it to raise auto emissions standards, but he’ll bring the hammer down when the state tries to cut payments to unionized health care workers.

That’s not how it’s supposed to work. As Madison explained in Federalist 45, the powers delegated to the federal government were “few and defined,” to be exercised mainly on “external objects” like foreign policy and international trade. All else — criminal law, marriage, social policy — remained with the states or the people.

Of course, No. 45 also contains one of the Federalist’s saddest sentences, in which Madison predicts that federal tax collectors will be “principally on the seacoast, and not very numerous.” (Sometimes the Framers weren’t all that prescient.)

Indeed, the federal government’s massive power to tax and spend has increasingly allowed it to trample state prerogatives. As the $786 billion stimulus package came online this year, for the first time ever, federal aid surpassed the sales tax as the largest source of revenue for the states.

“This money isn’t manna from heaven,” warned Indiana state Sen. Jim Buck, “it comes with a price.”

California learned that lesson back in May. Struggling to close a $40 billion budget gap, the state government lowered payments to home health care workers, but the Obama team threatened to withhold billions of dollars in stimulus money unless the wage subsidies were restored.

Officials in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s office accused the Service Employees International Union, a longtime Obama ally, of improper influence.

Just a few years back, the Republicans — nominally the party of federalism — were busily wielding federal power to enforce red state values — prosecuting medical marijuana patients, punishing doctors participating in Oregon’s “Death with Dignity” initiative, and trying to overturn Florida court decisions that allowed Terry Schiavo to be removed from life support. In that odd political climate, you often heard liberals lamenting the decline of states’ rights.

That strange new respect for the 10th Amendment lasted roughly as long as the blue team’s exile from power.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan said recently that “if we accomplish one thing in the coming years, it should be to eliminate the extreme variation in standards across America.” Diversity is bad, uniformity double-plus good; get with the program, comrade.

But one of federalism’s core virtues is the enormous diversity it allows. Decentralization makes it easier for Americans to escape unwelcome state experiments with fiscal and social policy.

It enhances the political power of individual citizens by allowing important decisions of governance to be settled closest to where Americans live and work. And it avoids making politics a centralized war of all against all, where each contested issue is settled in a one-size-fits-all fashion at the level furthest from the people.

Our federal system shouldn’t be a red team/blue team issue, respected or flouted depending on who’s up and who’s down. Conservatives are learning to rue their abandonment of federalist principles during the last administration; liberals may come to regret their rush toward centralization during the next.

Gene Healy is a vice president at the Cato Institute and the author of The Cult of the Presidency.

As I learned when recently delivering a lecture, the 10th Amendment is getting a lot of attention. Tenthers — those believing the federal government’s authority should be strictly limited to the enumerated powers in the Constitution — are passionate. Their opponents are equally passionate.

One person asked me if Tenthers’ argument had any constitutional legitimacy. My answer was, well, yes.

The 10th Amendment simply 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.”

Since 1789, the major political question has been concerning the paradox of dual sovereignty: To what extent shall we be national and to what extent shall we be federal? To what extent shall the United States government be sovereign and to what extent shall a state be sovereign?

Historically, the 10th Amendment has been used to preserve regional particularism and resist centralization. During the 1850s, some Northerners used the 10th Amendment as a justification to ignore the Fugitive Slave Law, and after Lincoln was elected, some Southerners used it as an excuse to preserve slavery.

During the Civil War, some northern governors invoked it to resist Lincoln’s centralizing tendencies, while some Confederate governors, including North Carolina’s Zeb Vance and Georgia’s Joe Brown, used states’ rights arguments to resist Jefferson Davis’ policies, including conscription.

A lot of contemporary liberals don’t have much sympathy for the 10th Amendment, however. “This argument has been used to stop progress, and to not keep hope alive,” said commentator Alan Colmes. “If the tenthers had their way, there would be no Medicare, no Social Security, even no public education. How about Every Child Left Behind”

What a simplification!

The 10th Amendment does not prevent states from having public education or creating welfare systems — to name two examples. In fact, North Carolina had public schools during the antebellum era.

Although it has problems, TennCare, a government-operated medical assistance program, has existed in the Volunteer State since 1994. Again, the argument is whether such programs should be created or heavily controlled and directed by the national government.

Invoking 10th Amendment concerns about sovereignty is nothing new.

In 1788, North Carolina balked over ratifying the Constitution and relinquishing more of its power to a centralized government. It remained out of the Union for a year, and in many ways, acted as a quasi-nation.

In 1818, the Tar Heel State levied a tax on out-of-state banks doing business in North Carolina, and charged each branch $5,000. The state snubbed its nose at a national bank: The Bank of the United States.

In a truly federal government, regional particularism lives. Sometimes it can be ugly and immoral. Other times it showcases genuine progress. Sometimes the argument “It’s just the way things are done here” is good enough for me; everyone doesn’t have to think like me.

In a truly federal government, Massachusetts could allow same-sex marriages and bar the Ten Commandments from public displays. In a truly federal government, Alabama could display the Ten Commandments in state courtrooms and outlaw same-sex marriages.

Until State of Missouri v. Holland (1920), migratory bird hunting was regulated at the state level, and in a truly federal government, it would be so today. In a truly federal government, states would make laws concerning abortion, health care, and many other issues.

And in a truly federal government, these states would continue to trade with each other and join forces in times of national emergency.

As government becomes more centralized, and states relinquish authority, the powerful redouble their efforts to make others act (and believe) like them.

Originally published in CarolinaJournal.com – reposted here with permission of the author.

Troy Kickler [send him email] has been Director of the North Carolina History Project since August 2005. He holds an M.S. in Social Studies Education from North Carolina A&T State University and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Tennessee. His specialty areas are nineteenth-century U.S., Civil War and Reconstruction, African American, and religious history.

by Rob Natelson

Effectively defending American federalism requires us to remember that federalism was not created by the states – nor was it created for state benefit.

Federalism was fashioned by the American people – for the benefit of individuals and of the people as a whole. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, possibly the most eminent defender of the Tenth Amendment to sit on the modern Supreme Court, put it this way:

The Constitution does not protect the sovereignty of States for the benefit of the States or state governments as abstract political entities, or even for the benefit of the public officials governing the States. To the contrary, the Constitution divides authority between federal and state governments for the protection of individuals. State sovereignty is not just an end in itself: “Rather, federalism secures to citizens the liberties that derive from the diffusion of sovereign power.”

CLICK HERE TO READ THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE