Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution

Official Bill of Rights

The Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights . Like the other amendments that make up the Bill of Rights, it was introduced to Congress on September 5, 1789 and ratified by the required number of states on December 15, 1791 .

Powers not delegated to the United States by this Constitution and not prohibited for individual states are retained by the states or the people, respectively.

Original text

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 ^[1]

- ^[2]

According to this amendment, the US Constitution does not fix state jurisdictions, but retains “residual competence”, that is, objects and problems that are not within the jurisdiction of the federation and are not included as special prohibitions. State rights are not guaranteed by the Constitution. In a decision in the Garcia case of 1985, the US Supreme Court stated: “the rights of the states are protected not by the X Amendment, but by the structure of the federal government itself” and the political process that guarantees “the adoption of laws that unlawfully burden the states” ^[3] .

This principle of “residual competence” is one of the two main components of the principle of federalism enshrined in the US Constitution. Section 8 of Section I of the US Constitution contains an exhaustive list of jurisdictions delegated to the federation and held solely by Congress (setting federal taxes , minting, setting up courts, etc.). The issues of legislative regulation that are not mentioned in this section, with some reservations, relate to state jurisdiction, which was clarified in 1791 by the X amendment. These circumstances indicate the actual existence of a dualistic system of sources of law in the American legal system , namely the simultaneous presence of federal and state laws. The apparent division of powers between the federation and the states is complicated by the norm specified in paragraph 18 of section 8 of article I of the US Constitution , providing for the possibility of expanding the competence of Congress by the publication of laws necessary and appropriate for the implementation of any federal powers prescribed by the Constitution. This contributes to the fact that the Congress regards the newly emerging subjects of legal regulation to its competence, which implies the supremacy of the federation in most areas of socio-economic and political life ^[4] .