Tenth Amendment Center

The merest glance at America’s founding suggests that no one really wanted full-bore elective despotism…

by Michael Boldin
In reading the Constitution, we can plainly see that Congress possesses the power “to regulate commerce with foreign nations, to raise and support armies, to grant letters of marque and reprisal, to provide for the common defense,” and even “to declare war.” Congress shares, with the President, the power to make treaties and [...]

by Bob Barr
Testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, July 25, 2008
Mr. Chairman and distinguished Members of this Committee, on which I was privileged to serve throughout my eight years as a Member of the House of Representatives, it is an honor to appear today to speak on the importance of the separation of powers in [...]

Although the founders wrote the US Constitution to limit the powers of the federal government, politicians from both sides of the aisle take the position that their power is far beyond what was ever imagined.
And now, John McCain’s new advisor, Michael Goldfarb, is making the claim that the executive branch has “near dictatorial powers”

by Ivan Eland
More memos recently have surfaced that were written early in the Bush administration by John C. Yoo from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel — the man who gave us the administration’s horrifyingly narrow definition of torture. As difficult as it is to believe, the recently released memos are even scarier than [...]

George Bush has formally presented an expansion of NAFTA to Peru. And, under FastTrack “rules,”Congress cannot amend the legislation.
What does this mean? Well, it’s quite simple. Under Fast Track, the president has the authority to ignore the will of Congress in negotiating new trade agreements.

A recent OpEd by Mario Cuomo in the Los Angeles Times, What The Constitution Says About Iraq, gave some surprisingly good analysis of how the Iraq war is a direct violation of the constitution. Here’s a few tidbits:

by Rep. Ron Paul
Recently, the General Accounting Office studied nineteen instances where the President issued so-called “signing statements.” In such statements, the President essentially begins the process of interpreting legislation – up to and including declaring provisions unconstitutional—hence often refusing to enforce them.
The GAO study found that in nearly 1/3 of the cases studied, [...]

DIGG This
The framers of the Constitution attempted to balance the power of the President as commander-in-chief with that of Congress, the representatives of the People. Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution gives to the Executive Branch the command of the nation’s armed forces, while Article I, Section 8 gives to the Legislative [...]

The San Francisco Chronicle Reports:
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Wednesday warned federal judges not to meddle in cases involving national security, following a string of judicial rebukes of the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism initiatives.
In a speech to the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute, Gonzales said federal judges are not “equipped to make decisions about” actions [...]