This sounds very libertarian, and even just logical, but it has no basis in the framing or ratification of the Constitution. BUT it also says, and this is a huge BUT, these so-called ‘powers’ CANNOT include activities expressly ‘prohibited by it (the Constitution) to the States.”īut Armentano goes off the rails when he writes, “In short, the States cannot regulate or prohibit activities that are explicitly protected by the Constitution as ‘rights’, namely activities such as (Amendment 1) ‘the free exercise of religion’ and the “right of the people…to assemble…” The Tenth Amendment makes this absolutely clear, clarifying that powers not delegated to the federal government remain with the states and the people.Īrmentano makes another correct assertion when he writes, “It is true that the 10th Amendment does say that powers NOT granted under the Constitution to the Feds are, in fact, reserved to the States and to the People. This is implicit in the structure of the Constitution. The federal government cannot exercise powers not delegated to it. He turns it into something it was never intended to be – a centralizing force for “liberty.”Įven if you think federal control over the states would increase liberty, the Constitution doesn’t delegate such powers to the federal government. In fact, it leaves these issues to the states.īy making it a federal, constitutional issue, Armentano unwittingly destroys the integrity of the Constitution. The federal Constitution has nothing to say about it. State constitutions prohibit states from exercising these powers. He wrote, “The States don’t have–and have never had–the legitimate power to regulate or prohibit religious freedom or freedom of assembly or ‘impair’ the obligation of contracts.’ Yet almost every Governor has done precisely this, i.e., they have restricted, regulated and prohibited activities that the Constitution itself says they have no right to restrict, regulate, or prohibit.”Īrmentano correctly asserts that the states don’t have the legitimate power to violate freedoms of religion and assembly. In an article published at, Dom Armentano makes this mistake when he asserts that the federal government has the power to stop state actions taken in response to the coronavirus pandemic. This not only backfires in the vast majority of cases it shatters the entire constitutional framework these people lean on in the first place. They want a top-down approach where the largest, most powerful government in the history of the world “protects” people from much smaller local, or state governments. You can’t escape one-size-fits-all policies enforced by the federal government without moving to another country.īut well-meaning liberty lovers sometimes undermine this fundamental structure with misguided attempts to harness centralized power to impose liberty. If you don’t like the way California handles a particular issue, you can move to Texas. Government power is inherently dangerous no matter who wields it, or where. And state governments can certainly abuse that power. Yes, it leaves a great deal of power to state governments. However, the beauty of the Constitution is that it diffuses this power. “The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the State,” he continued.Īll governments threaten your liberty, that much should be obvious. And as ratified, the Constitution delegated the federal government very little power.Īs James Madison wrote in Federalist #45, the powers delegated to the federal government are “few and defined.” The powers remaining with the state governments are “numerous and indefinite.” Federal power was primarily reserved for “external objects” including war, peace, foreign affairs and foreign commerce. But more significantly, they clearly divided power between the sovereign states and the central authority. Under the Constitution, the people of the several states delegated power to the various branches of the general government. But the Constitution isn’t a declaration of liberty.Įven so, the decentralized structure of government inherent in the Constitution as ratified does provide a framework conducive to liberty if maintained. A lot of people want to shoehorn the Constitution into their personal notions about liberty.
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