The Tenth Amendment of the Bill of Rights states:
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.
How is this Amendment a Right? The subject of the sentence is “powers not delegated”! Powers are NOT Rights. Powers generally oppose Rights.
However, the Tenth Amendment is a very important Right — It is the Right to a Democratic Republic! The word “Democratic” means “Power of the People” and “Republic” means the “Concern of the Public”. The Tenth Amendment is therefore the Collective Right Of “We the People” to have a True Democratic Republic.
Thomas Jefferson envisioned a government with the delegation of various powers to the various levels of governments from the national through the States on down through counties & cities & towns to precincts & wards. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis envisioned the states as the “Laboratories of Democracy”. Moses, in the 18th Chapter of Exodus, received counsel from Jethro to organize Ancient Israel on similar decentralizing principles as suggested by both Jefferson & Brandeis.
It must be pointed out that the different levels of our Federal System are better designed to carry out different functions of government. The army & navy are clearly national concerns. Roads and Transportation are concerns of national, state & local governments. Education is best run on a local level as the Teacher/Student Relationship is best one on one. Addiction Programs fall in the same type of category as Education.
United States Constitution States:
1–8–15. To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
This provision, under Traditional Constitutional American Law, is very similar if not identical to the Structure of Government that Moses established for Ancient Israel in the Bible. The pre Civil War Militias in America were used for Law Enforcement and other projects. The People are the Militia and according to the Constitution it is the Militia that should “execute the laws of the Union”. The Union is the Union Of Federal, State and Local Governments. Moses put the Government into the hands of the Ancient Israelites just as the Constitution puts the executive power of the President and State Governors into the Hands Of the Militia. The Traditional Militia System puts Real Power beyond the Voting Booth into the Hands of the People. This Real Power is indeed necessary if there is to be a True Democratic Republic. It is absolutely necessary that “We the People” have this Real Power.
Without this Real Power in the hands of the People, the Tenth Amendment becomes irrelevant. Both Models suggested by Jefferson and Brandeis become Irrelevant. And if the System devised by Moses is only an anachronism, then why does the Prophet Malachi when speaking in chapter 4:4 of the Last Days and the coming of Zion State: Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments.
Jefferson, Brandeis and Moses are all correct. “We the People” must have Real Power through the Militia System if a True Democratic Republic is to be a True Reality! The Tenth Amendment should be more fully implemented along these lines.