At the federal level, these include the presidential veto and the Supreme Court’s responsibility for impartially resolving controversies “relating to the boundaries between the two jurisdictions.” Constitution a variety of institutional checks and balances to help prevent Congress from usurping powers reserved to the states. Having seen the British Parliament, which began as a means of checking the power of the monarchy, gradually expand its jurisdiction until its own power was virtually unlimited, the Framers built into the U.S. The state and local governments, Madison explains, “are no more subject, within their respective spheres, to the general authority, than the general authority is subject to them, within its own sphere.” To underscore the broad-reaching residual sovereignty of the states, the Framers incorporated it in the Bill of Rights by reiterating in the 10th Amendment: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution…are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” The Constitution grants to the federal government all powers “necessary and proper” for executing its enumerated functions, but no authority whatever to rule on matters not explicitly delegated.
39, the Constitution “leaves to the several States a residuary and inviolable sovereignty over all other objects.” “Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.” Since federal jurisdiction extends “to certain enumerated objects only,” Madison stresses in Federalist No. “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined,” Madison explains in FederalistNo.
To protect against that possibility, they stipulated that the federal government would have only a short list of powers that were explicitly enumerated in the Constitution. The Framers were acutely sensitive to the fears of many that a new federal government would erode the independence and authority of the states and the people. And down that road, much hard experience already has taught us, lies tyranny. For without constitutional morality, there is no Constitution. To be real, a Constitution must be lived, not honored in the breach.
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