Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
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.
[3][4] Some 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.
Other Founding Fathers of the United States disagreed with this amendment, including James Wilson, John Dickinson (who drafted the Articles of Confederation), and Richard Henry Lee.
"[15] States and local governments have occasionally attempted to assert exemption from various federal regulations, especially in the areas of labor and environmental controls, using the Tenth Amendment as a basis for their claim.
In Garcia, the Court noted that this analysis was "unsound in principle and unworkable in practice", and concluded that the Framers believed state sovereignty could be maintained by the political system established by the Constitution.
In New York v. United States (1992),[21] the Supreme Court invalidated part of the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Amendments Act of 1985.
In Printz v. United States (1997),[23] the Court ruled that part of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act violated the Tenth Amendment.
The act required state and local law enforcement officials to conduct background checks on people attempting to purchase handguns.
Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, applied New York v. United States to show that the act violated the Tenth Amendment.
[26] Complex economic challenges arising from the Great Depression triggered a reevaluation in both Congress and the Supreme Court of the use of Commerce Clause powers to maintain a strong national economy.
In United States v. Lopez (1995),[29] a federal law mandating a "gun-free zone" on and around public school campuses was struck down.
Most recently, in Gonzales v. Raich (2005),[30] a California woman sued the Drug Enforcement Administration after her medical cannabis crop was seized and destroyed by federal agents.
In theory the product could enter the stream of interstate commerce, even if it clearly had not been grown for that purpose and was unlikely ever to reach any market (the same reasoning as in Wickard v. Filburn).
The tension became severe when Governor Faubus ordered the National Guard to prevent the nine from entering the school and President Eisenhower responded with federal troops to escort them.
[35] By this time, the incident had evolved into a national issue: it had become a debate not only on racism and segregation but also on states' rights and the Tenth Amendment.
James Madison and Thomas Jefferson drafted the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions that lay the bedrock for arguments for nullification.
The Civil War, however, ended all appeals to state sovereignty and the Supreme Court's authority as the highest interpreter of constitutional law stopped to be challenged.
In National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (2012),[43] the Court ruled that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (commonly referred to as the ACA or Obamacare) unconstitutionally coerced the states to expand Medicaid.
