The Tenth Amendment: Its Historical Background and Importance Today -NRA

Recently my wife and I went to a local meeting sponsored by our representative in the U.S. Congress. About 20 persons were there. When we saw the large percentage of senior citizens in attendance,¹ our first impression was that the meeting was going to be devoted to a bunch of oldsters asking for bigger "transfer payments"² and other government handouts.

To our delight, only one person pushed for increased federal handouts, and that was an oriental lady in her forties who wanted an increase in money to go to her brother who was a new immigrant to our country. All the other persons in attendance, including my wife and myself, pushed the congressman, and pushed him hard, to reduce federal spending and to decrease the level of federal involvement in the lives of citizens. One elderly lady in her 80's was especially vociferous in her demands that the federal government get out of her life. How encouraged I was to witness such a healthy expression of grass-roots political pressure from citizens, and how proud I was of the people from Mercer County, Pennsylvania! Oh, that the Lord would multiply such dedicated outspokenness all across our land!

I pointed out to our congressman that the federal government had no constitutional basis for getting involved in such local issues as wetland legislation or imposing rules and regulations on citizens through its alphabet-soup agencies like the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) and the FDA (Federal Drug Administration). Nor, some of us pointed out, does Congress have the right to pass gun control legislation that undermines the Second Amendment to the Constitution. It quickly became evident that the congressman from Mercer County, Pennsylvania, has a much broader view of what powers the federal government can legitimately wield under the Constitution than do citizens who understand that the Constitution gives only carefully limited powers to the U.S. Congress.

It is not at all unusual for elected representatives to the national congress to soon catch what is called "Potomac fever" after being exposed to the heady political pretensions that infect so many people in our nation's capital. Such "fever" gives a false credence to the idea that solutions to all problems rest in the hands of the Congress in Washington, D.C. As a result, many of our elected politicians tend to arrogate to themselves much more power than the Constitution grants. They tend to quickly forget, if they ever knew, that our constitutional republic was intentionally built on the sound idea of power being carefully divided into separate spheres of political influence. Historically, such a system of widely dispersed political powers tended to foster a maximizing of individual initiative and self-responsibility at the local level. Thus small problems tended to be solved quickly at the local level rather than being left to grow into large nationwide problems. Alex de Tocqueville noticed and approved of this unique and healthy feature of American society in his book Democracy in America written in the 1830's.

There is no doubt that many of the programs and activities of our federal government, and certainly the majority of bills passed during recent sessions of the U.S. Congress and signed into law by the president, are blatantly unconstitutional. Many clearly go beyond the careful limitations laid upon the federal government by the Ninth and Tenth amendments.³

The Growth of Big Government

If you would like to get just a small indication of how much the federal government intervenes in our lives today, I suggest you compare how much income was taxed away from citizens in the early 1900's versus today; then get a copy of the U.S. Constitution and read it through to see if you can discover a legitimate constitutional basis for such amazing growth! Before the Sixteenth Amendment (1913) the federal government had no power to levy a progressive income tax on citizens. Federal income, back then, was largely provided by tariffs, and the ordinary citizen would customarily go about his or her daily activities with little or no awareness that a national government even existed. What few rules and regulations imposed on citizens came from local or state authorities and were not at all intrusive, time consuming, or threatening. Today, however, citizens are burdened and harassed by federal agencies like the FDA, EPA, IRS, FTC, FCC, Federal Reserve Board, FDIC, FAA, OSHA, FBI, BATF, and others too numerous to mention!

Today total government expenditures would be much higher. A small indication of the growth of centralized government in the lives of citizens today can be grasped by the following information provided by a non-profit organization called Americans for Tax Reform. It reports that the average American worked 184.6 days⁵ in 1996 to support government. This total is broken down thus:

The Tenth Amendment Movement

There is a widespread grass-roots movement in our country designed to reverse the growing trend of centralization of power at the national level. The citizens who are concerned about the growth of a centralized bureaucratic government are calling for Congress to adhere to the clear limitations imposed by the Tenth Amendment.⁶

What is the intent of the Tenth Amendment? How is it that the Tenth Amendment came to be added to the U.S. Constitution? What is its historical background? And why is it especially important today? These are the questions we hope to answer in this article at this crucial time in the history of our republic.

The clear intent of the Tenth Amendment was to emphasize the limited nature of the powers that the American people so carefully and cautiously delegated to the national government through their agencies, the states. It is crucial at this point to emphasize an important fact of American history that is usually overlooked and has been consistently misrepresented for generations by misguided teachers, ignorant politicians, and statist-leaning members of the news media. It is the fact that the federal government is the creature of the states. The people did not directly ratify the Constitution but rather the states, which compacted with each other as sovereign political entities, ratified the Constitution of 1787. The original 13 states antedated the Constitution of 1787 which supplanted the Articles of Confederation and created the federal government. James Madison, in a letter of 1787 to Thomas Jefferson, who was then in France representing the United States, explained:

Another clear intent of the Tenth Amendment was to keep as much political power and control at the local level rather than at the national level, which is right in conformity with the advice Jethro gave to Moses in chapter 18 of Exodus. When Jethro observed that Moses was wearing himself out by personally serving as judge in the affairs of the people, he said to Moses:

Note that God had this advice given to Moses long before the Israelites crossed the Jordan and established their own republic in Israel. At this stage of Israel's history, God had established a political autocracy with Moses as His appointed head of state. But, even so, God took this opportunity to impress upon Moses (and the people, too) the need for divided and widely dispersed powers in government administration. Thus the Israelites learned an important lesson about freedom and republican government. The founders of our American government were astute scholars of history as well as of the Bible. As such, they learned from the experience of Old Testament Israel.

Federalists vs. Anti-Federalists

The so-called "Federalists" favored doing away with the Articles of Confederation, which had kept political power safely dispersed among the 13 states, in favor of the new Constitution of 1787, which would greatly increase the power of the new central government. John Jay, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton authored a series of articles supporting the need for a new Constitution which were later compiled into a book entitled The Federalist.

Adoption of the Constitution of 1787 was opposed by certain patriotic leaders of the day such as Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and others who argued prophetically that the new Constitution would eventually lead to a strong unitary state which would destroy the people's liberty and destroy the American Republic. The centralization of political power in our nation's capital and the corresponding decline of personal liberty in our country since the War Between the States has proven the validity of the Anti-Federalists' fears and the worth of their insightful criticisms of the Constitution of 1787.

The term "Anti-Federalists" was an unwelcome name given to the American patriots who wanted to retain the Articles of Confederation and who warned about the centralization of power at the national level that would result from the adoption of the Constitution of 1787. The Anti-Federalists actually regarded themselves as the federalists because they believed in the federalism of the Articles of Confederation. Since those who opposed adoption of the new Constitution lost the battle, they also forfeited the opportunity to designate names to the two opposing groups. Thus, the pro-Constitution group adopted the name "Federalist" and dubbed the pro-Articles group with the term "Anti-Federalists"--to the victor go the spoils! Other Anti-Federalists were Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, George Clinton of New York, Ethridge Gerry of Massachusetts, George Mason of Virginia, Samuel Spencer of North Carolina, and Robert Yates of New York.

The Tenth Amendment was added to the Constitution of 1787 largely because of the intellectual influence of the Anti-Federalists and other freedom-minded people who were in agreement with them. This mind set was generally found among those patriots who represented the common ordinary folk. The majority of the leading political figures of the time were in the Federalist camp. The Anti-Federalists had a deep "gut feeling" or intuitive suspicion against what today is called "big government," but which at that time might better be termed as "government bureaucracy at a distance," that is, governing rulers that resided outside of the people's local area. And the common people had such an attitude for good reason! For, during the 168-year colonial period in America, the people's freedom from government control had undergone some fundamental changes that, at first, were beneficial but eventually became more and more oppressive. To understand this underlying change in governmental policy, it is necessary to delve into a bit of history.

Historical Background

After the Roman legions withdrew from England at the beginning of the fifth century, they left the Romanized Celtic natives to the mercy of Anglo-Saxon invaders who struck with such force as to leave almost no traces of the Celtic language in modern English. The Anglo-Saxons pushed most of the Celts out of England, but they also fought among themselves. Their in-fighting prevented the formation of one monolithic group, and this resulted in a decentralization of civil power.⁸ One great legacy the Anglo-Saxons left in England was a strong emphasis on local government. But Alfred the Great (871-899), King of Wessex, set about to reduce this emphasis by imposing a more-centralized control over the people.

Nevertheless, it is to the Anglo-Saxons that we Americans, through our British heritage, owe the principle of the ordinary people's participation in government. It is from them that we got governmental subdivisions called counties, offices like the county sheriff ("shire reeve"), and county subdivisions called "the hundreds" which developed into local courts. All of these Alfred adapted to increase his own political power, but some of the local control and influence remained.

Then with the invasion of William, duke of Normandy (William the Conqueror), in 1066, the growth of centralization of political power began in earnest in England. William brought to England the continental form of centralized feudal monarchy that existed in France. He quickly ordered a very detailed census of property and people to more easily enable him to collect his feudal "aids" and "incidents" (i.e., feudal taxes) in his newly acquired territory. So oppressively thorough was this census that it was named the Doomsday Book.

The Norman (French) influence of centralized feudal monarchy continued to grow in England until the English barons rebelled against the growing tyranny of King John and forced him to sign the Great Charter, called the Magna Carta, in 1215. The terms of the Magna Carta did not at that time apply to the large body of people in England but only to the relatively few freemen of that era who constituted the barons, the clergy, and a small number of rural freeholders and burghers. Later the Magna Carta came to apply to the wider population as the term freeman gradually evolved to include every Englishman.

The one great step in civil government that was achieved with King John's signing of the Magna Carta at Runnymede in 1215 was recognition of the principle that the king did not have unlimited powers that he could force upon the barons as his vassals, but that the king himself was accountable to the "law of the land." This principle was to be evoked by the American colonists during the 1770's in their break with the king of England, King George III, and it was also to be applied in forming their own American political documents. But, and here is a very important point concerning the thrust of this essay, the Magna Carta still embodied a political philosophy that led to the continued development of a highly centralized unitary government in England. This centrist English philosophy of government continued to grow in England and became diametrically opposed to the democratic republican philosophy of government that took root in and grew in the American colonies.

In short, the governmental philosophy in England was based on the rule of man while the governmental philosophy that gained widespread acceptance in America was the idea of higher law--the idea that man's liberty and rights are a gift of God, and not a grant of privilege extended by either king or parliament! It was this clash of ideas, really of underlying theology, that led to the rupture between the American colonies and England in the 1770's, and which served as the God-oriented theological basis of American government.

This key contrast in philosophical/theological outlook was emphasized by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams in an address in celebration of the Fourth of July, 1821:

English Political Thought

The problem with English political thought that John Quincy Adams pointed out is that the barons at Runnymede did not start their thinking about the freedom and rights of man from a biblical view of God--that not man, not even the king, but only God is the source of man's inherent freedom and rights! This is the great watershed of difference between so-called English liberty and true American liberty. The one leads, ultimately, to eventual enslavement under the rule of an autocratic king or an all-powerful Parliament; the other leads to, if the people are successful in remembering and protecting their heritage, to true freedom and self-responsibility under God. This explains why various forms of statism, rather than true ideals of freedom have generally come from the political leaders of England. The political leaders in England, except for a few rare individuals like John Locke, haven't started their search for freedom principles from the proper foundation, the biblical view of man. Even so great an English jurist as Sir William Blackstone fell prey to the false idea that an all-powerful man-centered authority was necessary for the good of society. "...[T]here is and must be in all of them [States] a supreme, irresistible, absolute, uncontrolled authority...the power of Parlia- ment is absolute and without control."¹⁰

This incorrect concept of the source of man's freedom and liberties eventually led to replacing the autocratic English kings with an all-powerful Parliament. And the large majority of the English people came to accept the erroneous view.¹¹ This explains why it is difficult for newcomers to America from England and the European continent, as well as from other countries that lack an understanding of God-based freedom, to grasp the true spirit of American freedom.

Let me emphasize that it was this underlying theological spirit of liberty¹² which caused the split between the American colonies and England,¹³ and then led to the American people's insistence on including a Bill of Rights in the Constitution of 1787. This spirit of liberty naturally encourages a widespread dissemination of political power with most political power at the local level rather than at the national level. And this explains the addition of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The specific wording of both the Ninth and Tenth Amendments is designed to protect the heritage of local control of civil government by the people that they received from the Anglo-Saxons in England before it was displaced by the trend toward more centralized control implemented by Alfred the Great, and which was greatly strengthened by William the Conqueror after the battle of Hastings on October 14, 1066.

Let us refresh our memories concerning the local-government impact of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments by citing them here:

Why The Tenth Amendment Is Important Today

Now we come to the question of why the Tenth Amendment is important today. There are two reasons, and they go hand in hand with each other. First, over the years there has been a gradual, and then an increasingly rapid, centralization of power by the federal government in Washington, D.C. The historical watershed occurred during the War Between the States¹⁴ when President Lincoln usurped the Constitution in preventing the Southern States from seceding from the Union, which they felt they had a right to do.¹⁵ This was the first big step in erecting a centralized tyranny in what heretofore had been a decentralized republic. Further centralization of power continued with the erection of bureaucratic control agencies such as the Interstate Commerce Commission (1887) and the Food and Drug Administration (Food and Drug Act, 1906). Then other big steps in centralizing power occurred during World War I under the administration of Woodrow Wilson and then under Franklin D. Roosevelt.

But the great modern trend towards building a strong unitary government in our nation's capital began in the administration of Roosevelt in the 1930's with his conscious attempt to pervert the clear intentions of our founding fathers by reinterpreting the meaning of the General Welfare clause, the Interstate Commerce clause (and others), and his "packing" of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1937. Since that time the U.S. Supreme Court has served more or less systematically to undermine the Constitution to foster a big and growing centralized government bureaucracy. Roosevelt himself was a master politician and demagogue who made a practice of adroitly manipulating various political constituencies across the nation to gain and retain political power. He also used government agencies, like the IRS for instance, to attack his political enemies. Subsequent presidents who openly admire Roosevelt and regard him as their political mentor have followed his example to arrogate power to themselves.

The net result of this long-continued process of centralizing power has been to gradually change our decentralized republic into a powerful bureaucratic unitary state. This has fostered innumerable political special interest groups which feed off the centralized government and which ever encourage even more centralization of power in the hands of politicians and their bureaucratic agencies. There is only one way to stop this process short of resorting to armed resistance, and that is by continually presenting the truth to the people, regardless of how unpopular this might be. There is also a great need for the people to study the U.S. Constitution and other freedom documents so that they may know their rights and responsibilities in a democratic republic.

This brings us to the second reason why the Tenth Amendment is so important today. The centralization of power process described above has created a vast number of citizens who are beholden to the federal government for welfare payments, social security checks, educational subsidies, politically extended favors, business and farm subsidies, foreign aid payments which benefit big domestic companies, and so forth. The end result of this demagogic process is the erection of a vast political constituency that aids and abets the satanic process of erecting a modern day Tower of Babel which has already demoralized and conditioned unthinking people, not only to passively accept slavery, but even to hunger for it! Widely fostering information about the constitutional intent of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments can do much to restore our Republic and to renew the spiritual dynamism that once characterized the American people and which set America high on a hill to serve as a beacon of freedom to the whole world.

Tom Rose is a retired professor of economics at Grove City College, Pennsylvania, the author of seven books and hundreds of articles on economics and politics, and a member of the National Reform Association Board of Directors.

Endnotes:

2. "Transfer payments" is economic parlance which includes such things as social security payments, welfare payments, and other mandated "transfers" of wealth made through the coercive agency of civil government. The process forcibly takes wealth or income from the pockets of some citizens and immorally, but "legally," puts it in the pockets of other citizens. How much wealth is thus distributed, and in what direction the "transfers" flow, depends upon which groups in society are most persistent and effective in making their political voices heard by the politicians in Washington, D.C.

3. The Ninth Amendment reads: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

5. "How Many Days Did Americans Work for the Government in 1996?" The American Sentinel (May 1997), 4.

6. The states of Colorado, Missouri, California, Hawaii, and Illinois have already passed resolutions which call upon the U.S. Congress to adhere to the Tenth Amendment; and other states are in the process of doing so. See, Tom Rose, Reclaiming the American Dream (Mercer, PA: American Enterprise Publications, 1996), 34-35.

7. Hamilton Abert Long, Your American Yardstick (Philadelphia: Your Heritage Book, Inc., 1963), 169.

8. Material for this historical section on England comes from these sources: T.W.Wallbank, A.M. Taylor, N.M. Bailky, and G.F. Jewsbury, Civilization Past & Present, 5th ed., (Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman and Co., 1974), 220-227; Goldwin Smith, A Story of England, 3rd ed., (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1966), 12-81; Daniel Roselle, A World History (Boston: Ginn & Co., 1963), 273 -278.

11. Exceptions were more likely to be found in the conquered regions of Britain such as Scotland and Wales where a more biblically-oriented theology held sway. The above statement is not meant to suggest that there was no one over the centuries in England who did not have a proper God-oriented view of man's freedom, for the early Reformers certainly did, and so did the dissenting Puritans and Pilgrims who settled on the shores of New England in America. It only means to emphasize that the political leaders of England, over the centuries, failed to lead their people in the correct spiritual direction and thus failed to lead them in the correct political direction. As a result, English political leaders tended to enslave their people, both mentally and actually, to a man-based tyranny rather than directing them toward a true God-oriented freedom. What a man thinks is sure to lead him either in the direction of slavery or of freedom. Even professing Christians, if they accept wrong ideas like the "divine right of kings" or that their Parliament or Legislature have a legitimate right to exert uninvited power, will soon be enslaved (Proverbs 23:7).

12. The political leaders in England fully recognized the theological underpinnings of the American revolution and its influence on the American spirit of liberty calling it, "that Presbyterian war!"

13. An all-powerful Parliament gradually replaced the autocratic King of England and started to impose stricter mercantile rules and regulations on the American colonies. The colonies unsuccessfully besought the king, as their feudal lord, to interpose himself between themselves and the tyrannical Parliament. When their repeated supplications were unsuccessful, the open break and the war for independence followed. The American colonists remembered the long line of English tyrannies that were imposed on them, and this further motivated them to demand a Bill of Rights that would hopefully protect them from the very government they were setting up through their agencies, the states.

14. In the North it is called the "Civil War." In the South it is sometimes referred to as the "Second War of Independence." But I prefer the more accurate term, the "War Between the States."

15. The Southern states had two reasons to feel they had a right to secede in 1860. First, the precedent for secession was set in 1787 when a majority of the States held conventions to abandon the Articles of Confederation and to approve the new Constitution of 1787. The few states that remained under the Articles later chose to go along with their sister states. Second, since the states were the creators of both the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution of 1787, any state, as a compacting party to the Union, always retained the right to peacefully withdraw. This was evidenced by the fact that the minority of states who at first remained under the Articles did indeed recognize the right of individual states to withdraw peacefully from the Articles.

16. In the highly politicized era in which we live, it is certainly "politically incorrect" to speak out forthrightly concerning presidents whom statist-minded historians and the left-leaning media have whitewashed over the years, but only the truth will set people free (John 8:32). Believing lies will only lead to slavery, either spiritual or political, or both.

National Reform Association,

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The Tenth Amendment: Its Historical Background and Importance Today