The Tenth Amendment and The Role of Government
by "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."
As Congress attempts to scrounge up enough votes to pass a historic healthcare bill, many beginning to question the ever growing reach of the U.S. government. Is what is being attempted ethical, or even constitutional? Debate on both sides of the aisle has been heated, but it has all boiled down to interpreting the tenth amendment of our Constitution.
Simply put, the tenth amendment states that any powers not given to the federal government as listed in the constitution are under the discretion of the states, and then the people. The exception is those powers listed in the constitution that are blatantly prohibited to the states (waging war, for example).
This amendment is perhaps the most important in our constitution because it helps establish the meaning for the existence of our government. Now the United States was primarily founded on the ideas of Enlightenment philosophers of the 17th and 18th centuries, the most influential being John Locke. According to Locke, all human beings are born with unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of property (sound familiar?). Because of this, the sole existence of government is to protect the individual rights of its citizens.
Locke’s philosophy honestly makes a lot of sense. The most stable government is obviously the one ruled by the consent of the people, as it has no danger of being overthrown. If the government becomes tyrannical, then the people have the power to replace it. Laws are passed simply to prevent the rights of citizens from being violated. It is illegal to steal as it violates the right to property, and it is also illegal to murder as the right to life would be violated.
This brings to light the role of today’s government. Does the Constitution grant us the right to health insurance? Nope. Therefore, why is the federal government trying to pass a public option? The argument used is that it is for the common good. However, our government was not founded on socialist ideals, and it does not exist to provide for the community. The community is supposed to provide for itself, and the role of government is to, again, protect the rights of, not provide for, each member.
Therefore, the community would be each individual state. Our country was originally thirteen independent colonies, not fifty politically united, but still legally independent states. Any right not given to the federal government is under each state’s discretion. That part of the reason why we even have states. Yet more and more people are looking to the fed as a crutch for their economical and social problems. This frankly shows a lack of responsibility on their part, and if we continue in this direction of expanding government power, it will eventually lead to both the silencing of the individual and the decline of the United States as a whole
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