by Josh Eboch

Anyone who desires a constitutionally limited federal government should remember and celebrate that its limitations would necessarily cut both ways. Because if federal policy actually adhered to the letter of the Constitution, no single ideological camp could wield sufficient power to impose a set of beliefs on the entire country.

Which was exactly the point of our federalist system, and of the 10th Amendment. Beyond specific, enumerated federal powers, an infinite number of issues were intentionally left to the authority of the people through their state governments. And it is to the states that liberals, conservatives, and even libertarians must address all questions extending beyond the constitutional purview of federal authority. Continue Reading

by Jim Jess

This year, hundreds of thousands of citizens have met in Tea Party rallies across our nation and have given a voice to the Jeffersonian tradition. The crowds support the reduction of federal power and an end to undisciplined government spending. This approach to government is the philosophy advocated by our third president, Thomas Jefferson.

Jefferson was one of the early proponents of the “strict constructionist” view of the Constitution. This view affirms that any powers not explicitly delegated to the federal government by the Constitution, nor prohibited to the states, should be reserved to the states and to the people. This is the essence of the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which was part of the Constitution Jefferson swore to uphold in his oath of office. Continue Reading

by Kody Dickerson

This is the fundamental concept of the role of the federal government:

“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.”

That’s the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution.  If observed and respected to the same extent that the First Amendment is, for example, it alone would go most of the way to guaranteeing our basic freedoms, including those enumerated in all of the other Amendments.

The Tenth Amendment effectively cast the Constitution as a “Default Deny” policy against a large and oppressive government.  Default Deny is a term used in computer networking to describe a set of firewall rules that deny all network communication from anywhere and to anywhere unless it’s specifically allowed by an administrator. Continue Reading

by State Rep Steven Palazzo, Mississippi District 116

Speech before the State House supporting passage of HCR-69

Prior to the Tea Party demonstrations across our nation I have not heard of a ‘Tea Party’ since grammar school and the last one held in the U.S. was well over 200 years ago.

Resolution HCR 69 and the Tea Parties seen this past April around the state and nation could actually go hand in hand.  In different, but similar ways both address our federal governments excessive federal spending, an increasingly burdensome tax code, as well as meddling into our personal and professional lives at unprecedented levels.  For many Mississippians they’ve had enough and they are looking to us for a solution. Continue Reading

by Judge Andrew Napolitano, LewRockwell.com

“Some men think the Earth is round, others think it flat… But, if it is flat, will the King’s command make it round? And if it is round, will the King’s command flatten it? … NO.”

When Robert Bolt wrote that truism in his play A Man For All Seasons, his protagonist, Thomas More, was attempting to persuade the jury at his trial for high treason that all governments have limitations, and that the statute he was accused of violating was beyond Parliament’s lawful authority to enact. Sir Thomas was there appealing to the natural law as well as to the common sense of his jurors: The government can’t change the laws of nature. As we know, he fared no better than those who today argue that Congress is not omnipotent, has natural, moral, and constitutional limitations on its power, and every day fails to abide them. Continue Reading

Professor Rob Natelson of the University of Montana School of Law is an expert on the framing and adoption of the United States Constitution.  He was recently interviewed by Dori Monson on NewsTalk 97.3 FM in Seattle - it’s definitely worth the listen.

The interview runs just under 18 minutes, and you can load the audio by clicking the play button below:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Here’s a few recent articles that Professor Natelson has contributed to the Tenth Amendment Center:

• The Enumerated Powers of States
• The Constitution: A Question of Interpretation

Rob Natelson is Professor of Law and David Mason scholar at the University of Montana, where he teaches constitutional law and constitutional history.  He is currently seeking a publisher for his latest book, The Original Constitution.

by Jacob Hornberger, Future of Freedom Foundation

The Constitution brought into existence the most unusual government in history. It was a government whose powers were limited to those enumerated in the document itself. If the power wasn’t enumerated, the government could not exercise it. Fearful that the newly formed government might try to break free of that enumerated-powers straitjacket, the American people, through their duly authorized representatives, enacted the Bill of Rights.

The first eight amendments to the Constitution expressly prohibit the federal government from denying people fundamental rights and important procedural protections. To ensure that federal officials would not later claim that the list of such rights was exclusive, the Ninth Amendment was enacted.

Then, to ensure that powers not expressly delegated to the federal government could still be exercised by the states, the Tenth Amendment was enacted. Continue Reading

Continue Reading

by Ryan Cooper
Springfield News-Leader - March 17, 2009
“From the Right” appears every Tuesday.

“Every school child in America should be required to read the Bible.”

At that point, I stopped clapping for Patrick Buchanan, who was speaking in Kansas City during his failed 2000 presidential bid. The government shouldn’t force people to read books, even the Bible.

There is some truth to the liberal insult that conservatives want to create a Christian theocracy. Social conservatives tend to overemphasize religion when talking about social issues like abortion and gay marriage.

People who support limited government are turned off by the Republican Party because of the religious overtones. They don’t want a government run by preachers. Continue Reading

by David Gordon, Mises.org

[The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution. By Kevin R.C. Gutzman. Regnery Publishing, 2007. Xiii + 258 pgs.]

Kevin Gutzman gives his readers much more than they had a right to expect. The “Politically Incorrect Guide” series in which his book appears aims at a popular audience: its goal is to correct commonly held myths of leftist propaganda.

Gutzman eminently fulfills this goal, but his book cannot be called an elementary work. Quite the contrary, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution is a major contribution to American constitutional history.

Gutzman is a leading authority on the Virginia ratification debates on the Constitution, and he uses his research to great effect. He has been much influenced by the pioneering originalist scholar Raoul Berger, but he strengthens and extends Berger’s views.

The principal thesis of the book is that the Jeffersonian, states’ rights understanding of America’s founding and the Constitution is correct. When the American colonies assembled in the Continental Congress and adopted the Declaration of Independence in 1776, they did not create a new nation, Abraham Lincoln to the contrary notwithstanding. Continue Reading