What are the people's rights according to the 10th amendment?

Question

Amendment X of the US Constitution 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.”

What have the courts determined are the rights reserved to the people?

It seems as though the federal and state governments have taken control of all the rights, except those given to criminals.

I know the Bill Of Rights give me some rights, but what are they talking about in the 10th?

Answer 1

Scope and Purpose

''The Tenth Amendment was intended to confirm the understanding of the people at the time the Constitution was adopted, that powers not granted to the United States were reserved to the States or to the people. It added nothing to the instrument as originally ratified.'' 1 ''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.'' 2 That this provision was not conceived to be a yardstick for measuring the powers granted to the Federal Government or reserved to the States was firmly settled by the refusal of both Houses of Congress to insert the word ''expressly'' before the word ''delegated,'' 3 and was confirmed by Madison's remarks in the course of the debate which took place while the proposed amendment was pending concerning Hamilton's plan to establish a national bank. ''Interference with the power of the States was no constitutional criterion of the power of Congress. If the power was not given, Congress could not exercise it; if given, they might exercise it, although it should interfere with the laws, or even the Constitutions of the States.'' 4 Nevertheless, for approximately a century, from the death of Marshall until 1937, the Tenth Amendment was frequently invoked to curtail powers expressly granted to Congress, notably the powers to regulate commerce, to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment, and to lay and collect taxes.


In McCulloch v. Maryland, 5 Marshall rejected the proffer of a Tenth Amendment objection and offered instead an expansive interpretation of the necessary and proper clause 6 to counter the argument. The counsel for the State of Maryland cited fears of opponents of ratification of the Constitution about the possible swallowing up of states' rights and referred to the Tenth Amendment to allay these apprehensions, all in support of his claim that the power to create corporations was reserved by that Amendment to the States. 7 Stressing the fact that the Amendment, unlike the cognate section of the Articles of Confederation, omitted the word ''expressly'' as a qualification of granted powers, Marshall declared that its effect was to leave the question ''whether the particular power which may become the subject of contest has been delegated to the one government, or prohibited to the other, to depend upon a fair construction of the whole instrument.'' 8

Answer 2

The 10th Amendment has been largely ignored by the Congress and the Courts for quite some time. That is why people are confused about its meaning.

Literally, it means that if the Constitution doesn't say the Federal Government can do something then that power is for the states and the voters.

Both the 9th and 10th Amendments are what I call the "Hey, dummy, we shouldn't have to spell everything out! We don't have enough paper!" Amendments. Unfortunately the Congress and the Courts consistently ignore these two, and constantly go with the "If it ain't spelled out, we can do it." doctrine.

So, they have some mighty thin excuses for warrantless wiretaps, home searches, mail inspection, thin excuses for welfare programs, thin excuses for gun control and registration, thin excuses for regulating doctor - patient relationships, and a host of other nonsense that would take all day to type out.

Answer 3

The Bill of Rights should not be in the Constitution. It is not needed, and a danger that people might misinterpret that the constitution grants rights to the people. We the people retain all right, except for that which we gave up to the government in the Constitution- thus we have a government of Limited Powers.

The 10th ammendment clarifies this point.

Otherwise, have you ever read the comunist Bill of Rights? If a constituton could give us rights the communist would be better.

Answer 4

the total structure is a undying artwork of artwork that could want to artwork if we can provide up getting criminals and thugs into authorities offered by technique of the Zionist Federal Reserve Banks. Obama and Romney both fit the mildew and could do something for power. something else of the international is in unrest in basic terms waiting for this election to take position to make certain if america of a maintains on her Neo Conservative time table of Bullying and mendacity for the "more effective good" Ron Paul 2012

Answer 5

This is yet another useless piece of paper. The 10th Amendment was revoked in 1998. The people and the states no longer have powers not specifically granted by the US government.

Answer 6

Whatever POWER the Feds are not covered by in the Constitution then its has a flow down hill effect, the State, the County and then local. Thats the way I understand it, thus the term "Crap flows downhill."

Answer 7

The rights that we are supposedly suppose to have, but we don't because there is always someone making some law to take them away from us.