Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

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The Tenth Amendment (Amendment X) to the United States Constitution, a part of the Bill of Rights, was ratified on December 15, 1791.^[1] It expresses the principle of federalism, also known as states' rights, by stating that the federal government has only those powers delegated to it by the Constitution, and that all other powers not forbidden to the states by the Constitution are reserved to each state, or to the people.

The amendment, with origins before the American Revolution, was proposed by the 1st United States Congress in 1789 during its first term following the adoption of the Constitution. It was considered by many members as a prerequisite before they would ratify the Constitution,^[2] and particularly to satisfy demands of Anti-Federalists, who opposed the creation of a stronger federal government.

The purpose of this amendment is to reaffirm the principles of federalism and reinforce the notion of the Federal Government maintaining only limited, enumerated powers.^[3][4] Legal scholars (including textualists and originalists) have effectively classified the amendment as a tautology, a statement affirming that the federal government does not have any rights that it does not have.^[5]