The Tenth Amendment
Federal and state powers
Reserves to the states and the people every power the Constitution does not give to the federal government.
Ratified 1791 · 3 minute read
Published by Quasi-Legal Institute · Report an error
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.
In plain language
A government of limited powers
The federal government can do only what the Constitution authorizes. Congress’s powers are listed mainly in Article I, Section 8, which includes taxing, spending, regulating interstate commerce, and declaring war.
How much it limits Congress
The Court has said the amendment adds no separate power or limit. In United States v. Darby (1941), it called the amendment a “truism”: what was not given to the federal government remains with the states. The real question in most disputes is how broadly to read a federal power, such as the power to regulate commerce, and the answer has changed over time.
McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) set an early rule. Congress can use any appropriate means to carry out a power it has, even if the Constitution does not name the means. In that case, the Court also held that a state cannot tax a federal institution.
What the federal government cannot make states do
Under the anticommandeering doctrine, Congress cannot order state legislatures or state officials to carry out federal programs. The Court applied this in New York v. United States (1992), Printz v. United States (1997), and Murphy v. NCAA (2018).
Congress can still use money to encourage state action. In South Dakota v. Dole (1987), the Court upheld a law that withheld a share of federal highway funds from states that did not set the drinking age at 21. In NFIB v. Sebelius (2012), it held that Congress went too far when it threatened to take away all of a state’s existing Medicaid funding for refusing to expand the program.
Why education is mostly a state matter
The Constitution does not mention education, so running public schools falls largely to states and local school boards. They set graduation requirements, school calendars, and much of what is taught. The federal government influences schools mainly through funding conditions, such as Title IX, which applies to schools that receive federal money.
In United States v. Lopez (1995), Congress passed a law banning guns near schools. The Court struck it down because possessing a gun in a school zone, by itself, was not economic activity that Congress could regulate under the Commerce Clause. Congress later rewrote the law, and states have their own laws on the subject.