“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.”
This is the entirety of the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and the last of the ten amendments referred to as the Bill of Rights. Thankfully, there are people left in the Union who understand the importance of the Tenth Amendment, and some of them are acting on it.
Oklahoma, under the leadership of Representative Charles Key reasserted the rights of the States pursuant to the 10th Amendment. New Hampshire will soon vote on another such measure.
I’ve discussed Federalist 45 extensively on this site and others, but the facts are indisputable: the Founders intended a federal government limited to certain responsibilities, with most responsibility for the domestic matters of American citizens belonging to the States (as delegated to them by those same citizens). This is the entire basis for our system of government. Recent history proves that imbalance – an overly intrusive federal sphere – isn’t working. Let’s support measures like this as we find them as a means of ensuring the continuity, not to mention the solvency, of the Union.
