10th-amendment

2022-2023 Constitution Project 10th Amendment

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The 10th Amendment was ratified in 1791 by the Federalist delegates, who deemed a Bill of Rights necessary. After recently winning the Revolutionary War, the United States began to create a new government. Many were worried that the Constitution gave the central government too much power. The 10th Amendment was added after the Federalists declared they would create amendments based on the states and people’s wishes. This amendment is focused on how the federal government can interpret the Constitution, as opposed to the first eight amendments that give rights to the people. The 10th Amendment clarifies that power is not allotted by the Constitution to the federal government; this power belongs to the states or the people.

Debates surrounding this amendment concern the amendments’ failings to protect the power of the people. Legal scholars Gary Lawson and Robert Schapiro claim that different interpretations are often credited to the final portion, “the States respectively, or to the people.” Although “the people” are mentioned, when invoking this amendment in cases, individuals have rarely been able to protect themselves, where states have often succeeded. Two separate state sheriffs invoked the 10th Amendment to challenge a gun control law passed by Congress. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the sheriffs in Printz v. United States because state officials are not under the administration of the federal government. This case demonstrates how this amendment does not protect the people and favors states. A case that demonstrates that an individual person is unable to invoke the 10th Amendment to challenge the federal government is that of Bond v. United States. Bond was denied the right to appeal an act by Congress that she believed went against the 10th Amendment, so she went to the Supreme Court to have her appeal heard in state court. She then lost in the appellate court, which ruled in favor of the act being constitutional. This demonstrates how the protection of the 10th Amendment typically only reaches the states and not an individual.

This provision contains concepts seen in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Both were written after revolutions against monarchies by men attempting to protect individual rights. The French document stated that all positions of power are not able to overexert the power they were not given. The interpretation that the people’s power is not protected by the 10th Amendment is more persuasive because, although the amendment states that power should be given to the people, an individual’s power is only considered at the state versus federal level. If a state invokes the 10th Amendment, it is because the power belongs to the state. Whereas if an individual person is unable to defend themselves by invoking the 10th Amendment, it is because the amendment lacks specificity and does not place power in the people’s hands. This amendment needs to be fixed to better suit the power given to the people. For example, by specifically stating the grounds on which individuals have power, they can invoke the 10th Amendment when these powers are abused. This adaptation would allow the people’s voices to be heard and further prevent the federal government from overstepping upon the power given to them by the Constitution.. 

Zohar Lindemann- The Tenth Amendment

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Once the American colonists won the revolutionary war and gained their independence, the nation struggled to find a balance between the practical demands of running a large country and the ideals of freedom and individualism that they had so recently fought for. Many of the Constitution’s framers were afraid of creating yet another absolutist rule, feeling that offering too much power to a central government would leave the wants and needs of the common people forgotten. Other framers felt that the lack of a strong central government would result in political chaos. Many elements of the Constitution, which is largely considered a federalist document, are written with precaution to the fear that a central government would have the ability to completely overrule other political powers. For this reason, the framers deemed unnecessary the inclusion of a Bill of Rights, although numerous state constitutions had them at the time. To those drafting the Constitution, simply entertaining the idea that the federal government would have the ability to overrule the natural rights of the people was considered dangerous. The 10th Amendment ensures that there are thorough limitations on the federal government’s power and that the rights of the State and of the individual are properly protected, with federal power extending only as far as the Constitution dictates it is able to. 

After the 1933 installment of the New Deal, a federal effort to stabilize the economy, the 10th Amendment became somewhat obsolete. However, in 1992, it regained its relevance as a consequence of the “New Federalism” movement. Rober Schapiro asserts that for the benefit of the U.S. “politically, socially, and morally,” the 10th amendment should have remained neglected. In various instances, but most prominently throughout the Civil Rights Movement, the amendment has given states the ability to enforce racial inequality laws that contradict directly the rights outlined in other sections of the Constitution. Schapiro argues that in today’s world, federal and state powers are so intertwined that the amendment’s only purpose is to provide legal loopholes for states whose intentions dispute the core values outlined in the Constitution, providing a necessary “backstop” for everything not mentioned. 

The debate around the interpretation of this text is illustrated in the Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority (SAMTA) case. Within the case, SAMTA claims that being an institution controlled by a state government, they are exempt from federal labor controls such as minimum wage and overtime requirements. Ultimately, the court ruled in favor of Garica, arguing that the “traditional” function of a state government was subjective and that the structure of the federal system itself provided sovereign protection enough. Under the commerce clause, SAMTA was deemed subject to congressional legislation. This case serves as a demonstration of the ongoing debate over the role of a central government within the U.S.

Both the French and American revolutions can be considered as a test of the function that Enlightenment values serve within practical governments. With the French government often considered a failure, and the clear difficulties that the 10th amendment illustrates between federal and state power, the 10th amendment raises questions about the ability of radical Enlightenment ideas, such as Montesquieu’s strong belief in the separation of powers, to function smoothly.