Gurmanderdeep singh
Professor Paul Villa
Core Humanities 203
July 20,2013 Constitutional Consideration: The Tenth Amendment The United States Constitution gives significant power to the individual state governments. States are not mere provinces set up to take orders from a central authority in Washington DC and execute these orders regionally. States are afforded sovereign powers of their own. In Federalist #45, James Madison summarized the powers assigned to the individual states:
“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.” “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.” It’s quite clear that the Tenth Amendment was written to emphasize the limited nature of the powers delegated to the federal government. In delegating just specific powers to the federal government, the states and the people, with some small exceptions, were free to continue exercising their sovereign powers. When states and local communities take the lead on policy, the people are that much closer to the policymakers, and policymakers are that much more accountable to the people. Few Americans have spoken with their president; many have spoken with their mayor.

It was clear in the minds of our founding fathers while they were framing the constitution that federal government was supposed to indulge itself in external matters, such as war, peace, negotiations and foreign commerce, also included was the power of taxation. The state government was able to exercise their power over all other