could somebody interpret the 10th amendment? i understand 1 thru 9 . i am lost on the 10th?

Answer 1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

“ The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved for the States respectively, or to the people. ”

[edit] Summary

The Amendment, which makes explicit the idea that the federal government is limited only to the powers it is granted in the Constitution, is generally recognized to be a truism. In United States v. Sprague (1931) the Supreme Court noted that the amendment "added nothing to the [Constitution] as originally ratified." From time to time states and local governments have attempted to assert exemption from various federal regulations, especially in the areas of labor and environmental controls, using the Tenth Amendment as a basis for their claim. Another often-repeated quote, from United States v. Darby, 312 U.S. 100, 124 (1941), states:

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.

[edit] History and case law

[edit] Commerce clause

The Tenth Amendment is sometimes cited as constitutional ground denying Congress the right to pass any law it sees fit. However, Congress has cited its authority under the Commerce Clause for the authority to pass laws in realms of human behavior not otherwise mentioned in the Constitution. If a particular activity affects interstate commerce in any way, they have argued, the commerce clause gives Congress the authority to legislate with respect to that activity.

Many expansions of federal power enacted during the first phase of the New Deal in the 1930s were struck down by the Supreme Court, until President Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried to increase the number of judges on the court to fifteen (the court packing scheme), and fill it with sympathetic judges. Although this was unsuccessful, in what was called "the switch in time that saved nine," the Court shifted from a narrow interpretation of the Commerce Clause, and broadened Congress's authority on activities that impact interstate commerce.

In the 1942 case Wickard v. Filburn, the Court ruled that federal crop price controls reached the wheat grown on a rural farm to be fed to the owners and their farm animals. The rationale was that a farmer's growing "his own wheat" is "commerce" because if he had not grown and consumed it, he would have had to buy it from someone. Hence, in the aggregate, if farmers were allowed to consume their own wheat it would affect the interstate market in wheat.

Since the New Deal, opponents of "big government" have claimed that federalism — the sharing of sovereignty between the federal and state governments — is mostly dead, and that the federal government has become the universal governmental power, against the intent of the Framers of the Constitution.

In the 1985 case of Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, the Court announced that it would no longer regard Tenth Amendment questions as justiciable, holding "[t]he political process ensures that laws that unduly burden the States will not be promulgated" by Congress.

In United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995), a federal law mandating a "gun-free zone" on and around public school campuses was struck down because there was no clause in the Constitution authorizing it. This was the first modern Supreme Court opinion to limit the government's power under the Commerce Clause. The opinion did not mention the Tenth Amendment, and the Court's 1985 Garcia opinion remains the controlling authority on that subject.

Most recently, the Commerce Clause was cited in the 2005 decision Gonzales v. Raich. In this case, a California woman sued the Drug Enforcement Administration after her medical marijuana crop was seized and destroyed by Federal agents. Medical marijuana was explicitly made legal under California state law by Proposition 215; however, marijuana is prohibited at the federal level by the Controlled Substances Act. Even though the woman grew the marijuana strictly for her own consumption, and never sold any, the Supreme Court stated that growing one's own marijuana affects the interstate market of marijuana, citing the Wickard v. Filburn decision. It therefore ruled that this practice may be regulated by the federal government under the penumbra of the Commerce Clause.

Answer 2

Basically, the 10th amendment means that the federal government's power is clearly outlined in the Constitution, and that anything not listed there be left to each individual state to decide. It's largely considered, however, to be the most useless of the amendments and some even feel its inclusion was merely as a truism (rhetorical).

Answer 3

Give me the 10th amendment and then i will interpret it for you.

Answer 4

states govern themselves however, the laws of the federal govt. trump the state. If the state says one thing and the fed. govt says another Fed. wins. ex.. when people appeal to supreme ct.
If the fed. govt. doesnt' have provisions for something but state does, then state law stands.