TENTH AMENDMENT
RESERVED POWERS
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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.
RESERVED POWERS
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
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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.
\1\United States v. Sprague, 282 U.S. 716, 733 (1931).
\2\United States v. Darby, 312 U.S. 100, 124 (1941). ''While the
Tenth Amendment has been characterized as a 'truism,'' stating merely
that 'all is retained which has not been surrendered,' [citing Darby],
