The Tenth Amendment

"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."


The Tenth Amendment says that any powers not given to the federal government are to be given to the States. Back when the Constitution was being written, how powerful that national government should be was a hotly debated topic. The people were split whether to give more powers to the States or the Federal Government. The Anti-Federalists were so afraid of a big federal government that the Constitution most likely would not have been ratified without the promise that this Amendment would be included. I agree 100% with the anti-federalists that if the power doesn't NEED to be in the hands of the Federal Government, then it should be given to the States.

This is a picture that represents a movement in the United States to take powers away from the Federal Government and give them to the States. People today are still afraid of a powerful national government and for good reason. People with too much power have been shown by history to use that power in a negative way. Splitting up a power between the fifty states is a good way to decentralize a power and creates less room for abuse.