10th amenment?

Question

what is a simple interpretaion of the 10th amendment of the bill of rights?

Answer 1

Congress has limited and specific powers under the constitution. The intent was to limit big government, and leave the control of most issues to the individual states. Successive governments have expanded that influence, riding rough-shod over the rights of the states. A glaring example is federal involvement in education which is not permitted under the 10th amendment.

Interestingly, no state has ever mounted an appeal against federal action using the 10th Amendment, though I still don't understand why.

The amendment is simple; if it is not EXPLICITLY spelt out in the constitution, the states, not the federal government, control that area of government and law.

Answer 2

If the constitution doesn't mention something, the federal government has no authority on the issue.

The actual text is: 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.

I agree it is largely ignored today. Entire departments of the federal government are direct violations of the 10th amendment.

Answer 3

If the Constitution does not explicitly give the federal government a power, it does not belong to them. This was done to not have a large bureaucratic federal government. So much for that idea.

Answer 4

It's being mostly ignored these days...But it says that anything that the constitution did not carve out for the Federal governement belongs to the states.