Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

The Tenth Amendment (Amendment X) to the United States Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights, was ratified on December 25 It expresses the principle of federalism, which strictly supports the entire plan of the original Constitution for the United States of America, by stating that the federal government possesses only those powers delegated to it by the United States Constitution. All remaining powers are reserved for the states of the people.

The amendment was proposed by Congress in 1789 during its first term following the Constitutional Convention and ratification of the Constitution. It was considered by many members as a prerequisite of such ratification particularly to satisfy demands by the Anti-Federalism movement that opposed the creation of a stronger U.S. federal government.

In drafting this amendment, its framers had two purposes in mind: first, as a necessary rule of construction; and second, as a reaffirmation of the nature of the federal system of freedom.

The full text of the amendment reads as follows:

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.

The Tenth Amendment is similar to an earlier provision of the Articles of Confederation: "Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled." After the Constitution was ratified, South Carolina Representative Thomas Tudor Tucker and Massachusetts Representative Elbridge Gerry separately proposed similar amendments limiting the federal government to powers "expressly" delegated, which would have denied implied powers.James Madison opposed the amendments, stating that "it was impossible to confine a Government to the exercise of express powers; there must necessarily be admitted powers by implication, unless the Constitution descended to recount every minutia." When a vote on this version of the amendment with "expressly delegated" was defeated, Connecticut Representative Roger Sherman drafted the Tenth Amendment in its ratified form, omitting "expressly." Sherman's language allowed for an expansive reading of the powers implied by the Necessary and Proper Clause.

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