The Tenth Amendment

The Text

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 It Says

The federal government has only the powers the Constitution gives it. Everything else belongs to the states or to the people.

What It Protects Against

Unlimited federal power by implication. Without this clause the federal government could claim any authority not specifically forbidden. The amendment inverts the default: federal power must be found in the text, not assumed from its absence.

Sourced to a ratification-era document. See Contemporaneous Defense below.

Problem Addressed

Anti-Federalists argued throughout ratification that the new federal government would absorb the states unless its powers were expressly bounded, and several states conditioned ratification on an amendment of this kind.

Contemporaneous Defense

Federalist No. 45 argued that the powers delegated to the federal government are few and defined while those remaining with the states are numerous and indefinite. This amendment converts that assurance from argument into text.