by jenny miller on February 4th, 2006

jenny miller

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What is the 10th Amendment of the constitution? What does it mean?

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  • by lynnenorth on February 15th, 2006

    lynnenorth

    "Amendment X

    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. "

    You can find the whole Constitution, and all the Amendments, at http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.table.html .

    What it means is that the powers that the federal government should have are detailed in the Constitution, and also that there are rights and powers which are specifically given to state governments and explicitly forbidden to the federal government -- and that if something is not mentioned, if the power in question is not explicitly detailed in the Constitution, then the _default_ is that the federal government does *not* have that power. If a right or power is not explicitly given to someone in the Constitution, then the default is either that it is under the control of state governments or individuals of the public. And the federal government cannot (or at least, is not supposed to!) grant itself new powers without passing an amendment to the Constitution which would do so!

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  • by GiraffeyedDonor-ish on February 4th, 2008

    GiraffeyedDonor-ish

    Amendment X gives all the rights that are not specifically given to the federal government to the people and/or the states.

    It ensures that the government does not take all the power (one thing many people hoped the government wouldn't do). It gives the states and people rights as they had more of in the beginning (under the articles of confederation). Amendment X as well as Amendment IX protects powers to the people.

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  • by Anonymous on February 4th, 2008

    Anonymous

    the powers not delegated to the united states by the costitution nor prohibited by it to the states respectively or to the people

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  • by jaijaijai on April 30th, 2008

    jaijaijai

    stupid website

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  • by lalalalalalalalalalala11x on September 25th, 2010

    lalalalalalalalalalala11x

    it basically means that the federal government only has the power specifally assigned to it be the constitution. All the rest goes to the state governments or the people. If the government wants to control something else they have to add to the Constitution and go through that whole process... hope that helps!!!

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