The Tenth Amendment Means Exactly What It Says

Guest Column

by

        Mike Maharrey*

 

       Most Americans say the Constitution is important and needs to be followed. But what exactly are the constitutional limits on federal power? Well, whatever you do, don’t ask a lawyer. Most of them know very little about the Constitution. 

      I can already hear some people protesting. Lawyers know a lot about the Constitution, some tell me. They learn constitutional law, but read closely what is written here. It didn’t say they don’t know a lot about constitutional law. I said they typically don’t know a lot about the Constitution. There’s a huge difference.

      Constitutional law is made up of a bunch of lawyers’ opinions about what the Constitution means. But that’s not how you understand the actual meaning of the Constitution.

       I’ve been told that law students prepping for the Bar Exam are told that if the Tenth Amendment is ever among the answers on a multiple-choice question, they can immediately rule it out. For them, the Tenth Amendment is never the right answer. Thomas Jefferson had a little different view of the Tenth Amendment. He called it the “foundation of the Constitution.”

"I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That ‘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.’ To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.”

       The original constitution was meant to lay down rules that check the tendency for government to grow. It erects barriers to government power that must not be crossed. As Jefferson put it, “in questions of power then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.”

       The Tenth Amendment makes it unquestioningly clear that the Constitution constrains the general government to very specific and very limited powers. As James Madison explained in Federalist #45, “The powers delegated to the federal government by the proposed Constitution are few and defined.”

       Before the ink was even dry on the Constitution, the political class was already “interpreting” the document to expand its own powers. Today, that federal government controls nearly every aspect of your life. It runs your healthcare, educates your children and monitors your every move. Bureaucrats in Washington D.C. even tell you how much water you can flush down your toilets. So much for powers “few and defined.”

       Leftist politicians, bureaucrats, judges, law professors, and chattering pundits have told us how the Constitution should work. This is “their version” of the Constitution, a “living constitution” that goes around the original intent, in fact, it outright defies it. The political class has “interpreted” the rules and after 231 years of interpretation, we now have a federal government that claims the authority to do virtually anything and everything. It has taken possession of a boundless field of power. Along the way, our liberties have been whittled away. The power of the politicians and their wealth grows at the expense of our liberties.

       Sadly, most Americans accept this state of affairs. They even embrace it. In fact, most Americans actually believe that the federal government legitimately exercises all of this authority. If we want to reclaim our liberties, something has got to give. It’s time for dis-interpretation. It’s time for “we the people” to reclaim the Constitution.

*From an article by Mike Maharrey of the Tenth Amendment Center