July 12, 2023 • 23 mins
The final two amendments in the Bill of Rights are all about who has the power – the people and the states. Here's how it all works.
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(00:00):
Now this is the FCB podcast network. They're greed US solved them and they
thought so America. Welcome back tothe Growing Patriot podcast American History for Kids.
(00:32):
I'm your host Amelia Hamilton. Inthis episode, we are wrapping up
the Bill of Rights by talking aboutAmendments nine and ten. The ninth Amendment
says the enumeration and the constitution ofcertain rights shall not be construed to deny
or disparage others retained by the people. And that means just because we've listed
(00:55):
certain rights here that are protected forthe American people, we don't want you
thinking that those are the only rights. James Madison in particular, was worried
that by listing out rights, peoplewould think, well, that's the list,
and it works that way. Forthe government, the rights that they
are given, that's all that theyget. But for the people, they're
saying they have all of the rightsthey're born with, including these, and
(01:19):
then there's the list. And speakingof how different it is when they're talking
about what the government's allowed to do, here's what the tenth Amendment says.
The powers not delegated to the UnitedStates by the Constitution, nor prohibited to
it by the States are reserved tothe states respectively or to the people.
(01:40):
And that means if it's not onthe list, if it's not in the
Constitution or in the Bill of Rights, the big federal government doesn't have any
business dealing with that. It's eitherup to the states or to the people
themselves. Now let's get some questionsfrom Caroline, and then we'll go to
our expert for answers. Hi.My name is Caroline Rasmussen. I live
(02:14):
in Richmond, Virginia. I've beento James Madison's house. I'm nine,
almost ten. I've questions about theninth and ten Amendments. I hear a
lot about the first Amendment. Whyisn't the ninth Amendment so popular? And
the tenth Amendment? Who decide whichpower goes to the states and which power
(02:35):
goes to the people? Why arethese amendments at the end of the Bill
of Rights? Those are such goodquestions, and now we go to an
expert for the answers. My nameis Mike Maherry, and I am the
(02:57):
national Communications director for the Tenth AmendmentCenter. Which is a fancy way of
saying I write stuff. I domost of the not most of but a
good proportion of the articles on ourwebsite, and it's primarily involved teaching about
the Constitution and then the Tenth AmendmentCenter. We also do work and state
(03:19):
legislatures to try to find ways forstates to retake the power that they were
originally supposed to have had under theConstitution that the federal government has kind of
taken away from them. So we'reworking to get that power back or the
state governments. And so again Ido most of the writing. That's my
main job. Okay, great,So today we are talking about the ninth
(03:43):
and tenth Amendments and those go togetherpretty well, they're kind of the same
coin. Can you tell us alittle bit about what they say and why
they go together? Sure? Well, I think before I do that,
I need to maybe cover something thatyou've already covered. But it's very important
for people understand the context of theConstitution that these amendments are addressing. So
(04:05):
the Constitution created the federal government,and through the Constitution, the states and
the people gave certain powers, certainauthority to the federal government for it to
do certain things, and all ofthese things are listed in the Constitution.
The fancy term that we use areenumerated powers. Enumeraated means numbered, so
(04:27):
we've got numbered powers in the Constitution, and things like the federal government can
raise an army, the federal governmentcan run a post office. Those are
all things that are listed in thefederal in the Constitution for the federal government
to do. When you make alist of something, if I give you
a list of things that you cando, it pretty much implies that you
(04:50):
cannot do things that are not onthe list. And if you're a lawyer,
this is actually a legal term ora legal max. Anything that's not
on a list in a legal documentis assumed to be not allowed. So
any power that is not listed inthe Constitution for the federal government to do
(05:11):
are left to the states and thepeople. It's the state and the people's
power, not the federal government.All the Tenth Amendment does is a firm
and spell out in simple terms thatthis is the case. So the Tenth
Amendment simply says that any powers thatwere not delegated or given to the federal
government remain with the states and thepeople. Now, things in the Constitution
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that are prohibited to the states arealso not allowed by the states and the
tenth Amendment sums that up too.So what this is actually called, if
you want to learn some cool legallanguage, is called a rule of construction.
And what that means in simple termsis it's kind of like an instruction
manual. So if you get aninstruction manual for a toy or a video
(05:55):
game or something. I don't knowif video games have instructions because I'm old,
but if you have something like that, you have instructions that tell you
how to operate that game or thattoy. The Tenth Amendment is basically an
instruction manual on how to read theConstitution. Interestingly, if the Tenth Amendment
was never written, it would stillapply because it is basically how the Constitution
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is written. But they wanted tomake absolutely sure that everybody understood. If
we're not listing a power, youfederal government cannot do it. That brings
us to the Ninth Amendment. Andagain, these things work hand in glove,
and they're kind of in a waythat they're saying the same thing in
kind of an opposite way. TheNinth Amendment simply says that just because we
(06:41):
didn't list a right in these Billof Rights that is protected, doesn't mean
that it's not protected. I don'tknow if I don't know if that's the
best way to put it or not. But we have the Bill of Rights,
and it enumerates certain rights that thefederal government cannot infringe upon. So
we have the right to keep thembear arms. We have the right to
(07:03):
free speech, we have the rightto freedom of press, and all of
these things are listed. And wehave things like the right to a jury
trial. These things are listed specificallyin the Constitution. They weren't originally there,
and many people wanted there to bea Bill of Rights to make absolutely
sure that the federal government wasn't interferingwith these rights. And you probably covered
(07:25):
this, but the Bill of Rightsdoesn't give you rights. The Bill of
Rights simply says the federal government,the government can't infringe upon your rights.
It can't attack rights that you alreadyhave. You have the rights by your
very nature, by the fact thatyou were created, that you exist,
you have rights. The Bill ofRights says, federal government, you can't
infringe upon, or trample on,or in any way minimize these rights.
(07:48):
But there was some concern when theydid the Bill of Rights that, hey,
if we list out these things.We say we have a right to
keep them bear arms, and aright to freedom of press and freedom of
speech. There might be other rights. We can't list all of our rights.
So the Ninth Amendment simply asserts thatjust because it wasn't on that list
doesn't mean that the federal government cantrample on them. And again it goes
(08:09):
back to the way the Constitution iswritten. If the powers not there,
then the federal government can't do it. So just because it's not in the
Bill of Rights, if the Constitutiondoesn't say the federal government can do something,
it still can't, whether it's inthe Bill of Rights or not.
So again, both of these worktogether to tell you how to read the
Constitution and effect it's saying, federalgovernment, you are very limited. You
(08:30):
were only allowed to do these certainthings, and all of these other things
are off limits. They're left tothe states and they're left to the people
themselves. That is a great overview. So Caroline's first question, you mentioned
two of the rights that were protectedin the First Amendment. She said,
we hear about the First Amendment alot, we don't hear about especially the
ninth very much. Why do youthink that is I think it's because the
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federal government has taken on so manypowers that it's not supposed to. Again,
if you go look at the listof things the federal government is supposed
to be doing, it's pretty short. So the federal government is doing all
kinds of stuff that it was neverintended to do. Federal government was never
supposed to run healthcare. The federalgovernment was never supposed to do gun control.
(09:18):
The Second Amendment makes that clear.The federal government is not supposed to
do worker safety. None of thatstuff is my schools might be a good
example for our listeners too. Whatwas that cool? Actually? Absolutely,
that's a perfect education. Nowhere inthe Constitution does the federal government have any
power to run education. As aresult of the fact that the federal government
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has taken on these rules that itwasn't supposed to, that's called usurpation.
Is the fancy term I can callit stealing. It's stealing your power,
it's stealing your state's power. Becauseof that, nobody wants to talk about
the tenth and ninth Amendment, becauseif we did talk about that more,
the federal wouldn't be able to doall these things. And there's a lot
of people out there that think it'sa good idea for the federal government to
(10:05):
do a lot of things that itreally shouldn't be doing. And in my
opinion, the reason that you don'twant the federal government doing all these things
is because every place is different.There are fifty states, and there are
hundreds of counties and cities, andthere's different people in those places, and
they have different values and different ideas. So why should we have one government
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far far away from where you mightbe say you have to do it this
way. It's called decentralization. Thesystem was supposed to be decentralized. It
has become very centralized, with thefederal government and doing almost everything, and
as a result, the whole systemis kind of off kilter and out of
whack. And therefore we don't talkabout the ninth and tenth Amendments because they
(10:48):
go against the way that the countryis kind of turned. Yeah. So
one thing I love on the podcastyou're just learning about history in general is
how things always tied to other Andwhen you were just talking about how the
country is so big and so diverse, it made me think of what we
talked about in our electoral College episode. You need to do what's best for
(11:09):
everyone, and it's a lot ofdifferent people trying to make one big country
work and doesn't. It's hard todo right, and that's exactly why the
Constitution was written the way it was. If you look at the things that
the federal government is supposed to do, there are things that really involve all
of us, right, the ideaof foreign relations, foreign trade, making
(11:31):
treaties with other countries, that involvesall of the states together. There are
things of common interest. Those arethe things that the federal government were supposed
to do. James Madison in Federalistsnumber forty five, if you've talked about
the Federalist papers, these were papersthat were written in support of the Constitution,
and they kind of explain a lotof these weird terms that people might
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not understand. And James Madison said, the powers given to the federal government
are few and defined, and thosewhich remain to the states people are numerous
and indefinite. And then he listsout the things that the federal government's supposed
to do, and there's these thingslike war, peace, foreign relations,
those kind of things involve all ofus. Education doesn't need to involve all
of us education can involve just yourcity or even just your family. Absolutely.
(12:18):
So you mentioned, you know,in the federalist papers talking about these
specific enumerated rights, and that leadsus perfectly into Caroline's next question, which
was who got to decide which powerwent to the state, the state,
the people, the federal government.Who decided. That's a really good question,
that's a very perceptive question. Soit really goes back to when they
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drafted the constitution. So all theway back to the Philadelphia Convention some people
call it the Constitutional Convention. Therewere delegates representatives from each state that went
to that convention to create a constitution, and through lots of debates, they
are kind of the ones that deterwhat powers the federal government were supposed to
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have. And because they all camefrom different states, they had different ideas.
Some of the bigger states wanted onething, some the smaller states would
have rather had maybe a little morepower for the federal government. So they
compromised and they came up with theconstitution that we got, and then once
that was written, then it wenttoo each state and every state had an
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election and they elected delegates representatives togo to their Convention, and those people
representing the people at large decided whetheror not they were going to ratify or
accept the constitution. So really thepeople who decided ultimately were all of us
when we accepted or not us.But the folks who ratified the constitution,
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they were the ones that decided theywere going to accept it. And the
delegates representing all of the different statesin Philadelphia that wrote the constitution, they're
the ones that came up with theframework. Okay, okay, So then
as they're putting the Bill of Rightstogether, these two come right at the
end. Why do you think thatis, Well, it's kind of funny.
I think it's really just a matterof form more than anything. I
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believe at one time, the tenthAmendment was actually first. And interestingly,
when they very first proposed the amendments, they weren't at the end at all.
They were actually put into the textof the Constitution, so you would
have found these amendments actually in theConstitution itself in different places. They decided
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that was going to be kind ofmessy, unwieldy, wouldn't look good,
so they decided to put them atthe end. But there really is no
there's no reason that those two comeat the end other than the fact that
they're a little bit different than theother eight, because they are again rules
of construction or instructions that they kindof don't change the meaning, but don't
read anything into the number. It'snot because any or more or less important.
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It's just because that's how they numberedthem. Interestingly, Thomas Jefferson once
said that he that the tenth amendthat was the very foundation of the Constitution,
and it was the most important thingto understand about the Constitution. So
it's not to diminish how important itis that it's tenth good. So something
I always like to ask when wetalk about a different amendment is, you
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know when the founders, you know, we know that they obviously were fighting
back against a tyranny, and theyfelt it was really important to lay out
exactly what was allowed. So howdo you think they would feel about how
it's going today? Are we livingby the ninth and tenth Amendments. I
think they would be absolutely shocked athow far we've drifted away from the true
(15:39):
meaning and understanding of the Constitution.I think even people like Alexander Hamilton,
who he wanted a more powerful nationalgovernment than a lot of the other founders.
I think even he would be shockedat how far it's that it's drifted
away from the original meaning. Andyou know, you can kind of asked
(16:00):
the question, well, why whyhas this happened? Right? We have
the Constitution, it says what itsays, everybody understood it when they were
ratifying it. What happened along theway, And I think ultimately maybe we've
relied a little bit too much onwords on paper as opposed to being active
and involved and actually putting our workinto keeping the government in check. Even
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some of the founders, James Madisonand others talked about constitutions being parchment barriers,
paper barriers, and of course,if you ever know, if you
put up a paper wall, Ia walkway right through it. Right.
Parchment barriers need enforcement, and that'swhat we try to do at the Tenth
Amendment Center. It's really up tothe people in the States. When the
federal government does something that it's notsupposed to, we need to stand up
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and say no, you can't dothat, and take action to stop it.
When we can do that, statesdon't have to help enforce federal laws
or implement federal programs, and eventhe Supreme Court has said this, So
we have a tool that we canuse that the federal government's doing something it's
not supposed to do, the state'sgoing to say we're not going to cooperate
with that, We're not going todo that. That's the way we could
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hold the constitution or hold the federalgovernment in check, and we failed to
do that. So really the blamefalls on us, not on the constitution
itself, and that's what we're tryingto do. We're trying to get people
more involved so that they're active atthe state and local level and trying to
do things to stop the federal governmentwhen it steps over its line. Do
(17:30):
you think that our founders would besurprised that, you know, that growing
federal government, the things that they'vetaken on. It wasn't necessarily that they
came and took them, but sometimesthe people ask for them to take it.
Yeah, I don't know if theywould be surprised. I'm sure that
that was true in their day aswell. I think they would probably be
surprised that there weren't more people thatstood up and opposed it. But human
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nature being what it is, weall like to get stuff, right,
you know, if your parents aregonna come bringing toys, heyy great,
you know, and you may notthink about the fact that maybe there's some
strings attached. You know, maybeif you get this toy, you're gonna
have to do something that you didn'twant to do. People don't think about
that. They look at the thingsthat they're going to get and they don't
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recognize the power that can be usedagainst them. And a lot of very
wise people in the Founding generation talkedabout the fact the power to do good
also brings about the power to doevil. So I think it's most important
to limit power completely, even whenmaybe it would do something that we like,
because you always have to remember thatwhen you give the government power today
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for something that you want to getdone tomorrow, there may be somebody else
in power that you don't like andthey're still going to have that same authority.
So it's very important to keep itlimited. And people have not done
that when instead they've run after thegifts and the goodies, and I think
that's how we got where we are. Yeah, So what can we all
be doing to kind of keep aneye on things and make sure it doesn't
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get too crazy. Well, Ithink the first thing is exactly what you're
doing. Our education system has failedto teach the constitution, so we have
whole generations of people who really don'tknow. I guarantee you that the young
people listening to this right now havea better understanding of the Constitution than the
(19:25):
vast majority of adults. So you'vealready taken the first step. You'll understand
and you know, And that's importantto educate people about what the Constitution really
was supposed to mean, and howthe federal government was supposed to be limited
and why. And then as youget older and you can involve yourself in
the political process, it's very importantif you're going to vote, to find
people to vote for that support trueconstitutional, fidelity, true constitutional you know
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that they're going to stick to it. And I think it's also to pay
it important to pay attention to what'shappening at your state and local level because
it is there that we and pushback. We can do things. You
know, if the federal government passesa law enforcing, say, some kind
of gun control that is unconstitutional,states don't have to enforce it. And
if states don't enforce it, it'sprobably not going to get enforced because the
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federal government doesn't have enough people orenough resources to do it themselves. They
always depend on state cooperation. Soas you get older, don't just pay
attention to what's happening in Washington,DC, but also pay attention to what's
happening in your state capital and workto get people elected to represent you there
that are going to stand firm andhold the line when the federal government tries
(20:41):
to overstep its bounce. That's greatadvice, all right. So as we
wrap it up today, what arethe kind of the key things that we
should keep in mind when we thinkabout the ninth and tenth Amendments. I
think the number one key thing toremember is the federal government can only do
what is on the list, onlyexercise the powers that are in the Constitution
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itself. So if the federal government'sgoing to do anything you hear the federal
government's got a plan to do X, Y or Z, the first thing
that you should do is go lookat the constitution and say, Okay,
where is this power? Does thispower actually exist? If the federal government
can do it, then we candebate whether it's a good idea or not.
(21:22):
But if the federal government is notsupposed to do it, if it's
not listed, then they shouldn't doit, whether it's a good idea or
not. And so the Ninth Amendmentsimply support this idea. So the thing
that I would really hope folks rememberis that the federal government is strictly limited
to its given powers. That's reallyall the ninth and ten Amendment are saying.
(21:45):
Yep, that's what it all comesdown to. The power rests in
the States, and then the people. Yes, absolutely, all right,
Mike, thank you so much forjoining us today and walking us through these
two Yeah, thank you so muchfor having me as a pleasure. And
(22:06):
there we go the very end ofthe Bill of Rights, which is the
very end of the Constitution in thefounding period. There were more amendments later,
but we're really sticking to the foundingperiod on this podcast. But if
you're curious, you can always golook up the other amendments. We love
all history here. So basically,the ninth Amendment says, just because something
(22:27):
isn't listed as a right in theConstitution doesn't mean it's not a right.
And then the Tenth Amendment says,just because something's not listed in the Constitution
for the government, it definitely doesmean that it's none of their business.
That's not always how it works today. The American people do ask the federal
(22:48):
government to do a lot of stuffthat's not their job. So we just
need to be careful because, likehe said, when we give the government
the power to do something, theyhave it pretty much forever. It's hard
to get it back, and thenext person who has that power might not
be somebody you like very much.That's all for this episode, and I
can't wait to see you for thenext one. In the meantime. You
(23:10):
can find us at Growing Patriots onInstagram, Twitter, and Facebook, and
we also have a substack now atExtraordinary America. See you next time.
The Great US all for Jeremy andthey thought so we were America. This
(23:41):
has been a presentation of the FCBpodcast Network, where Real Talk Lives.
Visit us online at FCB Podcasts dotcom.
Now this is the FCB podcast network. They're greed US solved them and they
thought so America. Welcome back tothe Growing Patriot podcast American History for Kids.
(00:32):
I'm your host Amelia Hamilton. Inthis episode, we are wrapping up
the Bill of Rights by talking aboutAmendments nine and ten. The ninth Amendment
says the enumeration and the constitution ofcertain rights shall not be construed to deny
or disparage others retained by the people. And that means just because we've listed
(00:55):
certain rights here that are protected forthe American people, we don't want you
thinking that those are the only rights. James Madison in particular, was worried
that by listing out rights, peoplewould think, well, that's the list,
and it works that way. Forthe government, the rights that they
are given, that's all that theyget. But for the people, they're
saying they have all of the rightsthey're born with, including these, and
(01:19):
then there's the list. And speakingof how different it is when they're talking
about what the government's allowed to do, here's what the tenth Amendment says.
The powers not delegated to the UnitedStates by the Constitution, nor prohibited to
it by the States are reserved tothe states respectively or to the people.
(01:40):
And that means if it's not onthe list, if it's not in the
Constitution or in the Bill of Rights, the big federal government doesn't have any
business dealing with that. It's eitherup to the states or to the people
themselves. Now let's get some questionsfrom Caroline, and then we'll go to
our expert for answers. Hi.My name is Caroline Rasmussen. I live
(02:14):
in Richmond, Virginia. I've beento James Madison's house. I'm nine,
almost ten. I've questions about theninth and ten Amendments. I hear a
lot about the first Amendment. Whyisn't the ninth Amendment so popular? And
the tenth Amendment? Who decide whichpower goes to the states and which power
(02:35):
goes to the people? Why arethese amendments at the end of the Bill
of Rights? Those are such goodquestions, and now we go to an
expert for the answers. My nameis Mike Maherry, and I am the
(02:57):
national Communications director for the Tenth AmendmentCenter. Which is a fancy way of
saying I write stuff. I domost of the not most of but a
good proportion of the articles on ourwebsite, and it's primarily involved teaching about
the Constitution and then the Tenth AmendmentCenter. We also do work and state
(03:19):
legislatures to try to find ways forstates to retake the power that they were
originally supposed to have had under theConstitution that the federal government has kind of
taken away from them. So we'reworking to get that power back or the
state governments. And so again Ido most of the writing. That's my
main job. Okay, great,So today we are talking about the ninth
(03:43):
and tenth Amendments and those go togetherpretty well, they're kind of the same
coin. Can you tell us alittle bit about what they say and why
they go together? Sure? Well, I think before I do that,
I need to maybe cover something thatyou've already covered. But it's very important
for people understand the context of theConstitution that these amendments are addressing. So
(04:05):
the Constitution created the federal government,and through the Constitution, the states and
the people gave certain powers, certainauthority to the federal government for it to
do certain things, and all ofthese things are listed in the Constitution.
The fancy term that we use areenumerated powers. Enumeraated means numbered, so
(04:27):
we've got numbered powers in the Constitution, and things like the federal government can
raise an army, the federal governmentcan run a post office. Those are
all things that are listed in thefederal in the Constitution for the federal government
to do. When you make alist of something, if I give you
a list of things that you cando, it pretty much implies that you
(04:50):
cannot do things that are not onthe list. And if you're a lawyer,
this is actually a legal term ora legal max. Anything that's not
on a list in a legal documentis assumed to be not allowed. So
any power that is not listed inthe Constitution for the federal government to do
(05:11):
are left to the states and thepeople. It's the state and the people's
power, not the federal government.All the Tenth Amendment does is a firm
and spell out in simple terms thatthis is the case. So the Tenth
Amendment simply says that any powers thatwere not delegated or given to the federal
government remain with the states and thepeople. Now, things in the Constitution
(05:34):
that are prohibited to the states arealso not allowed by the states and the
tenth Amendment sums that up too.So what this is actually called, if
you want to learn some cool legallanguage, is called a rule of construction.
And what that means in simple termsis it's kind of like an instruction
manual. So if you get aninstruction manual for a toy or a video
(05:55):
game or something. I don't knowif video games have instructions because I'm old,
but if you have something like that, you have instructions that tell you
how to operate that game or thattoy. The Tenth Amendment is basically an
instruction manual on how to read theConstitution. Interestingly, if the Tenth Amendment
was never written, it would stillapply because it is basically how the Constitution
(06:19):
is written. But they wanted tomake absolutely sure that everybody understood. If
we're not listing a power, youfederal government cannot do it. That brings
us to the Ninth Amendment. Andagain, these things work hand in glove,
and they're kind of in a waythat they're saying the same thing in
kind of an opposite way. TheNinth Amendment simply says that just because we
(06:41):
didn't list a right in these Billof Rights that is protected, doesn't mean
that it's not protected. I don'tknow if I don't know if that's the
best way to put it or not. But we have the Bill of Rights,
and it enumerates certain rights that thefederal government cannot infringe upon. So
we have the right to keep thembear arms. We have the right to
(07:03):
free speech, we have the rightto freedom of press, and all of
these things are listed. And wehave things like the right to a jury
trial. These things are listed specificallyin the Constitution. They weren't originally there,
and many people wanted there to bea Bill of Rights to make absolutely
sure that the federal government wasn't interferingwith these rights. And you probably covered
(07:25):
this, but the Bill of Rightsdoesn't give you rights. The Bill of
Rights simply says the federal government,the government can't infringe upon your rights.
It can't attack rights that you alreadyhave. You have the rights by your
very nature, by the fact thatyou were created, that you exist,
you have rights. The Bill ofRights says, federal government, you can't
infringe upon, or trample on,or in any way minimize these rights.
(07:48):
But there was some concern when theydid the Bill of Rights that, hey,
if we list out these things.We say we have a right to
keep them bear arms, and aright to freedom of press and freedom of
speech. There might be other rights. We can't list all of our rights.
So the Ninth Amendment simply asserts thatjust because it wasn't on that list
doesn't mean that the federal government cantrample on them. And again it goes
(08:09):
back to the way the Constitution iswritten. If the powers not there,
then the federal government can't do it. So just because it's not in the
Bill of Rights, if the Constitutiondoesn't say the federal government can do something,
it still can't, whether it's inthe Bill of Rights or not.
So again, both of these worktogether to tell you how to read the
Constitution and effect it's saying, federalgovernment, you are very limited. You
(08:30):
were only allowed to do these certainthings, and all of these other things
are off limits. They're left tothe states and they're left to the people
themselves. That is a great overview. So Caroline's first question, you mentioned
two of the rights that were protectedin the First Amendment. She said,
we hear about the First Amendment alot, we don't hear about especially the
ninth very much. Why do youthink that is I think it's because the
(08:56):
federal government has taken on so manypowers that it's not supposed to. Again,
if you go look at the listof things the federal government is supposed
to be doing, it's pretty short. So the federal government is doing all
kinds of stuff that it was neverintended to do. Federal government was never
supposed to run healthcare. The federalgovernment was never supposed to do gun control.
(09:18):
The Second Amendment makes that clear.The federal government is not supposed to
do worker safety. None of thatstuff is my schools might be a good
example for our listeners too. Whatwas that cool? Actually? Absolutely,
that's a perfect education. Nowhere inthe Constitution does the federal government have any
power to run education. As aresult of the fact that the federal government
(09:41):
has taken on these rules that itwasn't supposed to, that's called usurpation.
Is the fancy term I can callit stealing. It's stealing your power,
it's stealing your state's power. Becauseof that, nobody wants to talk about
the tenth and ninth Amendment, becauseif we did talk about that more,
the federal wouldn't be able to doall these things. And there's a lot
of people out there that think it'sa good idea for the federal government to
(10:05):
do a lot of things that itreally shouldn't be doing. And in my
opinion, the reason that you don'twant the federal government doing all these things
is because every place is different.There are fifty states, and there are
hundreds of counties and cities, andthere's different people in those places, and
they have different values and different ideas. So why should we have one government
(10:26):
far far away from where you mightbe say you have to do it this
way. It's called decentralization. Thesystem was supposed to be decentralized. It
has become very centralized, with thefederal government and doing almost everything, and
as a result, the whole systemis kind of off kilter and out of
whack. And therefore we don't talkabout the ninth and tenth Amendments because they
(10:48):
go against the way that the countryis kind of turned. Yeah. So
one thing I love on the podcastyou're just learning about history in general is
how things always tied to other Andwhen you were just talking about how the
country is so big and so diverse, it made me think of what we
talked about in our electoral College episode. You need to do what's best for
(11:09):
everyone, and it's a lot ofdifferent people trying to make one big country
work and doesn't. It's hard todo right, and that's exactly why the
Constitution was written the way it was. If you look at the things that
the federal government is supposed to do, there are things that really involve all
of us, right, the ideaof foreign relations, foreign trade, making
(11:31):
treaties with other countries, that involvesall of the states together. There are
things of common interest. Those arethe things that the federal government were supposed
to do. James Madison in Federalistsnumber forty five, if you've talked about
the Federalist papers, these were papersthat were written in support of the Constitution,
and they kind of explain a lotof these weird terms that people might
(11:52):
not understand. And James Madison said, the powers given to the federal government
are few and defined, and thosewhich remain to the states people are numerous
and indefinite. And then he listsout the things that the federal government's supposed
to do, and there's these thingslike war, peace, foreign relations,
those kind of things involve all ofus. Education doesn't need to involve all
of us education can involve just yourcity or even just your family. Absolutely.
(12:18):
So you mentioned, you know,in the federalist papers talking about these
specific enumerated rights, and that leadsus perfectly into Caroline's next question, which
was who got to decide which powerwent to the state, the state,
the people, the federal government.Who decided. That's a really good question,
that's a very perceptive question. Soit really goes back to when they
(12:41):
drafted the constitution. So all theway back to the Philadelphia Convention some people
call it the Constitutional Convention. Therewere delegates representatives from each state that went
to that convention to create a constitution, and through lots of debates, they
are kind of the ones that deterwhat powers the federal government were supposed to
(13:01):
have. And because they all camefrom different states, they had different ideas.
Some of the bigger states wanted onething, some the smaller states would
have rather had maybe a little morepower for the federal government. So they
compromised and they came up with theconstitution that we got, and then once
that was written, then it wenttoo each state and every state had an
(13:22):
election and they elected delegates representatives togo to their Convention, and those people
representing the people at large decided whetheror not they were going to ratify or
accept the constitution. So really thepeople who decided ultimately were all of us
when we accepted or not us.But the folks who ratified the constitution,
(13:45):
they were the ones that decided theywere going to accept it. And the
delegates representing all of the different statesin Philadelphia that wrote the constitution, they're
the ones that came up with theframework. Okay, okay, So then
as they're putting the Bill of Rightstogether, these two come right at the
end. Why do you think thatis, Well, it's kind of funny.
I think it's really just a matterof form more than anything. I
(14:09):
believe at one time, the tenthAmendment was actually first. And interestingly,
when they very first proposed the amendments, they weren't at the end at all.
They were actually put into the textof the Constitution, so you would
have found these amendments actually in theConstitution itself in different places. They decided
(14:30):
that was going to be kind ofmessy, unwieldy, wouldn't look good,
so they decided to put them atthe end. But there really is no
there's no reason that those two comeat the end other than the fact that
they're a little bit different than theother eight, because they are again rules
of construction or instructions that they kindof don't change the meaning, but don't
read anything into the number. It'snot because any or more or less important.
(14:54):
It's just because that's how they numberedthem. Interestingly, Thomas Jefferson once
said that he that the tenth amendthat was the very foundation of the Constitution,
and it was the most important thingto understand about the Constitution. So
it's not to diminish how important itis that it's tenth good. So something
I always like to ask when wetalk about a different amendment is, you
(15:18):
know when the founders, you know, we know that they obviously were fighting
back against a tyranny, and theyfelt it was really important to lay out
exactly what was allowed. So howdo you think they would feel about how
it's going today? Are we livingby the ninth and tenth Amendments. I
think they would be absolutely shocked athow far we've drifted away from the true
(15:39):
meaning and understanding of the Constitution.I think even people like Alexander Hamilton,
who he wanted a more powerful nationalgovernment than a lot of the other founders.
I think even he would be shockedat how far it's that it's drifted
away from the original meaning. Andyou know, you can kind of asked
(16:00):
the question, well, why whyhas this happened? Right? We have
the Constitution, it says what itsays, everybody understood it when they were
ratifying it. What happened along theway, And I think ultimately maybe we've
relied a little bit too much onwords on paper as opposed to being active
and involved and actually putting our workinto keeping the government in check. Even
(16:25):
some of the founders, James Madisonand others talked about constitutions being parchment barriers,
paper barriers, and of course,if you ever know, if you
put up a paper wall, Ia walkway right through it. Right.
Parchment barriers need enforcement, and that'swhat we try to do at the Tenth
Amendment Center. It's really up tothe people in the States. When the
federal government does something that it's notsupposed to, we need to stand up
(16:48):
and say no, you can't dothat, and take action to stop it.
When we can do that, statesdon't have to help enforce federal laws
or implement federal programs, and eventhe Supreme Court has said this, So
we have a tool that we canuse that the federal government's doing something it's
not supposed to do, the state'sgoing to say we're not going to cooperate
with that, We're not going todo that. That's the way we could
(17:10):
hold the constitution or hold the federalgovernment in check, and we failed to
do that. So really the blamefalls on us, not on the constitution
itself, and that's what we're tryingto do. We're trying to get people
more involved so that they're active atthe state and local level and trying to
do things to stop the federal governmentwhen it steps over its line. Do
(17:30):
you think that our founders would besurprised that, you know, that growing
federal government, the things that they'vetaken on. It wasn't necessarily that they
came and took them, but sometimesthe people ask for them to take it.
Yeah, I don't know if theywould be surprised. I'm sure that
that was true in their day aswell. I think they would probably be
surprised that there weren't more people thatstood up and opposed it. But human
(17:56):
nature being what it is, weall like to get stuff, right,
you know, if your parents aregonna come bringing toys, heyy great,
you know, and you may notthink about the fact that maybe there's some
strings attached. You know, maybeif you get this toy, you're gonna
have to do something that you didn'twant to do. People don't think about
that. They look at the thingsthat they're going to get and they don't
(18:17):
recognize the power that can be usedagainst them. And a lot of very
wise people in the Founding generation talkedabout the fact the power to do good
also brings about the power to doevil. So I think it's most important
to limit power completely, even whenmaybe it would do something that we like,
because you always have to remember thatwhen you give the government power today
(18:41):
for something that you want to getdone tomorrow, there may be somebody else
in power that you don't like andthey're still going to have that same authority.
So it's very important to keep itlimited. And people have not done
that when instead they've run after thegifts and the goodies, and I think
that's how we got where we are. Yeah, So what can we all
be doing to kind of keep aneye on things and make sure it doesn't
(19:03):
get too crazy. Well, Ithink the first thing is exactly what you're
doing. Our education system has failedto teach the constitution, so we have
whole generations of people who really don'tknow. I guarantee you that the young
people listening to this right now havea better understanding of the Constitution than the
(19:25):
vast majority of adults. So you'vealready taken the first step. You'll understand
and you know, And that's importantto educate people about what the Constitution really
was supposed to mean, and howthe federal government was supposed to be limited
and why. And then as youget older and you can involve yourself in
the political process, it's very importantif you're going to vote, to find
people to vote for that support trueconstitutional, fidelity, true constitutional you know
(19:52):
that they're going to stick to it. And I think it's also to pay
it important to pay attention to what'shappening at your state and local level because
it is there that we and pushback. We can do things. You
know, if the federal government passesa law enforcing, say, some kind
of gun control that is unconstitutional,states don't have to enforce it. And
if states don't enforce it, it'sprobably not going to get enforced because the
(20:15):
federal government doesn't have enough people orenough resources to do it themselves. They
always depend on state cooperation. Soas you get older, don't just pay
attention to what's happening in Washington,DC, but also pay attention to what's
happening in your state capital and workto get people elected to represent you there
that are going to stand firm andhold the line when the federal government tries
(20:41):
to overstep its bounce. That's greatadvice, all right. So as we
wrap it up today, what arethe kind of the key things that we
should keep in mind when we thinkabout the ninth and tenth Amendments. I
think the number one key thing toremember is the federal government can only do
what is on the list, onlyexercise the powers that are in the Constitution
(21:02):
itself. So if the federal government'sgoing to do anything you hear the federal
government's got a plan to do X, Y or Z, the first thing
that you should do is go lookat the constitution and say, Okay,
where is this power? Does thispower actually exist? If the federal government
can do it, then we candebate whether it's a good idea or not.
(21:22):
But if the federal government is notsupposed to do it, if it's
not listed, then they shouldn't doit, whether it's a good idea or
not. And so the Ninth Amendmentsimply support this idea. So the thing
that I would really hope folks rememberis that the federal government is strictly limited
to its given powers. That's reallyall the ninth and ten Amendment are saying.
(21:45):
Yep, that's what it all comesdown to. The power rests in
the States, and then the people. Yes, absolutely, all right,
Mike, thank you so much forjoining us today and walking us through these
two Yeah, thank you so muchfor having me as a pleasure. And
(22:06):
there we go the very end ofthe Bill of Rights, which is the
very end of the Constitution in thefounding period. There were more amendments later,
but we're really sticking to the foundingperiod on this podcast. But if
you're curious, you can always golook up the other amendments. We love
all history here. So basically,the ninth Amendment says, just because something
(22:27):
isn't listed as a right in theConstitution doesn't mean it's not a right.
And then the Tenth Amendment says,just because something's not listed in the Constitution
for the government, it definitely doesmean that it's none of their business.
That's not always how it works today. The American people do ask the federal
(22:48):
government to do a lot of stuffthat's not their job. So we just
need to be careful because, likehe said, when we give the government
the power to do something, theyhave it pretty much forever. It's hard
to get it back, and thenext person who has that power might not
be somebody you like very much.That's all for this episode, and I
can't wait to see you for thenext one. In the meantime. You
(23:10):
can find us at Growing Patriots onInstagram, Twitter, and Facebook, and
we also have a substack now atExtraordinary America. See you next time.
The Great US all for Jeremy andthey thought so we were America. This
(23:41):
has been a presentation of the FCBpodcast Network, where Real Talk Lives.
Visit us online at FCB Podcasts dotcom.
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