Supreme Court rules unanimously in United States v. Supreme Court strikes down a Connecticut law forbidding the use of contraceptives because it restricts the right of marital privacy. Although the Bill of Rights does not actually mention privacy, the Court concludes that it is a natural extension of the rights mentioned in the First, Third, and Fourth Amendments.
The Court points to the Ninth Amendment as further evidence that a right does not need to be spelled out in the Constitution to be considered fundamental. In Roe v. Wade , the U. Supreme Court rejects a Texas law that outlaws abortion because it restricts the right to privacy. In Richmond Newspapers, Inc. Virginia , the U. Although that right is not specifically listed in the Constitution, the Court finds the history of the Bill of Rights makes its ruling proper.
In United States v. Lopez , the U. Supreme Court grants the states more rights. It rules that Congress overstepped its authority under the commerce clause when it passed the Gun-Free School Zones Act.
To uphold a law that determined the punishment for gun possession and gun use near schools, the Court rules, would convert the commerce clause authority into general police power held only by the states under the Tenth Amendment.
A federal gun control law, known as the Brady Law, imposes on local authorities the obligation to perform mandatory background checks of potential gun buyers. Along similar lines, the Court invoked the Eleventh Amendment to limit the ability of Congress to subject states to suit in federal court, even for claims that the states were violating federal law. Even while reinvigorating the Tenth Amendment in New York v.
In its current incarnation, however, the function of the Tenth Amendment is to impose a non-textual limit on the use of federal power. The Court has held that even when the federal government is regulating interstate commerce, as authorized by Article I, section 8 of the Constitution, the federal government still may not invade certain protected enclaves of state sovereignty.
For example, in New York v. United States , the Court held that the Tenth Amendment prohibited Congress from enacting a comprehensive plan for the disposal of radioactive waste that required states to assume responsibility for the disposal of waste within their borders. That reading runs counter to the text of the Tenth Amendment.
By way of policy justification, the Court has suggested that it must draw clear lines between domains of state and federal authority. The blurring of federal and state functions, the Court asserts, would undermine the accountability of government officials. The citizens would not know to which government entity they should address policy concerns.
Scholars have questioned the empirical underpinnings of this line of argument. Are people really so easily confused? Moreover, given the extensive overlap of state and federal power in so many areas, how important is it that some area of state exclusivity be maintained? Citizens would need a fairly sharp sense of discernment to know which would be the few areas in which the federal government was immune from responsibility.
The basic problem is that the language of the Tenth Amendment appears to assume a clear demarcation of state and federal domains of authority. The areas of society subject to federal regulation have grown significantly over time. The good news is that federalism is alive and well in the United States today.
States remain vital centers of policy debate and experimentation. State and federal power intersects and overlaps in many ways that promote the well-being of the people. Federal and state courts and legislatures engaged in a dialogue that eventually resulted in the recognition of a national right. However, this federalism does not rely on outdated notions of exclusive areas of state sovereignty. For the moment, these exclusive state domains remain relatively small, offering little resistance to the exercise of enumerated federal powers.
Should the Court expand these enclaves, however, current Tenth Amendment doctrine would become a more significant, and pernicious, force. The Tenth Amendment formally changed nothing in the Constitution. As the joint statement indicates, no law that would have been constitutional before ratification of the Tenth Amendment is unconstitutional afterwards. The Tenth Amendment simply makes clear that institutions of the federal government exercise only limited and enumerated powers — and that principle infused the entire idea and structure of the Constitution from onwards.
As a number of prominent Federalists pointed out during the ratification debates, this carefully targeted authorization to limit speech cuts strongly against any more general national power in the area. As the Federalists argued to tedium, the whole Bill of Rights was mostly just a big exclamation point.
The 10th Amendment says that the federal government has only those powers specifically granted by the Constitution. By Dec. The amendments are meant to secure individual liberties and to maintain the balance of power between the federal government and the states. The 10th Amendment states that powers not delegated to the federal government belong to the states.
Although not specified in the 10th Amendment, the U. The Kentucky Legislature passes the resolutions. In McCulloch v. Maryland , the U. After being passed by Congress, the 13th Amendment is sent to the states on Feb.
The amendment is ratified on Dec. In Collector v. Day , the U. New York.
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