The Tenth Amendment
The Tenth Amendment to our Constitution is fundamentally important, and provides that any powers not expressly delegated to the federal government in the Constitution are “reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
The Tenth Amendment to our Constitution is fundamentally important, but often overlooked. This Amendment provides that any powers not expressly delegated to the federal government in the Constitution, and not also prohibited in the Constitution against the states, are “reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” This Amendment essentially embodies the foundation of our limited constitutional form of government—namely, the federal government has only the powers expressly delegated to it. All other powers remained with the people, or the States. As a Member of Congress, where thousands of bills are proposed in a year, it is our duty to look at every proposed law to make sure it involves a federal power that in fact is based on the Constitution.