Now this is the FCB podcast network. They're greed US solved them and they thought so America. Welcome back to the Growing Patriot podcast American History for Kids. I'm your host Amelia Hamilton. In this episode, we are wrapping up the Bill of Rights by talking about Amendments nine and ten. The ninth Amendment says the enumeration and the constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. And that means just because we've listed certain rights here that are protected for the American people, we don't want you thinking that those are the only rights. James Madison in particular, was worried that by listing out rights, people would think, well, that's the list, and it works that way. For the government, the rights that they are given, that's all that they get. But for the people, they're saying they have all of the rights they're born with, including these, and then there's the list. And speaking of how different it is when they're talking about what the government's allowed to do, here's what the tenth Amendment says. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited to it by the States are reserved to the states respectively or to the people. And that means if it's not on the list, if it's not in the Constitution or in the Bill of Rights, the big federal government doesn't have any business dealing with that. It's either up to the states or to the people themselves. Now let's get some questions from Caroline, and then we'll go to our expert for answers. Hi. My name is Caroline Rasmussen. I live in Richmond, Virginia. I've been to James Madison's house. I'm nine, almost ten. I've questions about the ninth and ten Amendments. I hear a lot about the first Amendment. Why isn't the ninth Amendment so popular? And the tenth Amendment? Who decide which power goes to the states and which power goes to the people? Why are these amendments at the end of the Bill of Rights? Those are such good questions, and now we go to an expert for the answers. My name is Mike Maherry, and I am the national Communications director for the Tenth Amendment Center. Which is a fancy way of saying I write stuff. I do most of the not most of but a good proportion of the articles on our website, and it's primarily involved teaching about the Constitution and then the Tenth Amendment Center. We also do work and state legislatures to try to find ways for states to retake the power that they were originally supposed to have had under the Constitution that the federal government has kind of taken away from them. So we're working to get that power back or the state governments. And so again I do most of the writing. That's my main job. Okay, great, So today we are talking about the ninth and tenth Amendments and those go together pretty well, they're kind of the same coin. Can you tell us a little bit about what they say and why they go together? Sure? Well, I think before I do that, I need to maybe cover something that you've already covered. But it's very important for people understand the context of the Constitution that these amendments are addressing. So the Constitution created the federal government, and through the Constitution, the states and the people gave certain powers, certain authority to the federal government for it to do certain things, and all of these things are listed in the Constitution. The fancy term that we use are enumerated powers. Enumeraated means numbered, so we've got numbered powers in the Constitution, and things like the federal government can raise an army, the federal government can run a post office. Those are all things that are listed in the federal in the Constitution for the federal government to do. When you make a list of something, if I give you a list of things that you can do, it pretty much implies that you cannot do things that are not on the list. And if you're a lawyer, this is actually a legal term or a legal max. Anything that's not on a list in a legal document is assumed to be not allowed. So any power that is not listed in the Constitution for the federal government to do are left to the states and the people. It's the state and the people's power, not the federal government. All the Tenth Amendment does is a firm and spell out in simple terms that this is the case. So the Tenth Amendment simply says that any powers that were not delegated or given to the federal government remain with the states and the people. Now, things in the Constitution that are prohibited to the states are also not allowed by the states and the tenth Amendment sums that up too. So what this is actually called, if you want to learn some cool legal language, is called a rule of construction. And what that means in simple terms is it's kind of like an instruction manual. So if you get an instruction manual for a toy or a video game or something. I don't know if video games have instructions because I'm old, but if you have something like that, you have instructions that tell you how to operate that game or that toy. The Tenth Amendment is basically an instruction manual on how to read the Constitution. Interestingly, if the Tenth Amendment was never written, it would still apply because it is basically how the Constitution is written. But they wanted to make absolutely sure that everybody understood. If we're not listing a power, you federal government cannot do it. That brings us to the Ninth Amendment. And again, these things work hand in glove, and they're kind of in a way that they're saying the same thing in kind of an opposite way. The Ninth Amendment simply says that just because we didn't list a right in these Bill of Rights that is protected, doesn't mean that it's not protected. I don't know if I don't know if that's the best way to put it or not. But we have the Bill of Rights, and it enumerates certain rights that the federal government cannot infringe upon. So we have the right to keep them bear arms. We have the right to free speech, we have the right to freedom of press, and all of these things are listed. And we have things like the right to a jury trial. These things are listed specifically in the Constitution. They weren't originally there, and many people wanted there to be a Bill of Rights to make absolutely sure that the federal government wasn't interfering with these rights. And you probably covered this, but the Bill of Rights doesn't give you rights. The Bill of Rights simply says the federal government, the government can't infringe upon your rights. It can't attack rights that you already have. You have the rights by your very nature, by the fact that you were created, that you exist, you have rights. The Bill of Rights says, federal government, you can't infringe upon, or trample on, or in any way minimize these rights. But there was some concern when they did the Bill of Rights that, hey, if we list out these things. We say we have a right to keep them bear arms, and a right to freedom of press and freedom of speech. There might be other rights. We can't list all of our rights. So the Ninth Amendment simply asserts that just because it wasn't on that list doesn't mean that the federal government can trample on them. And again it goes back to the way the Constitution is written. If the powers not there, then the federal government can't do it. So just because it's not in the Bill of Rights, if the Constitution doesn't say the federal government can do something, it still can't, whether it's in the Bill of Rights or not. So again, both of these work together to tell you how to read the Constitution and effect it's saying, federal government, you are very limited. You were only allowed to do these certain things, and all of these other things are off limits. They're left to the states and they're left to the people themselves. That is a great overview. So Caroline's first question, you mentioned two of the rights that were protected in the First Amendment. She said, we hear about the First Amendment a lot, we don't hear about especially the ninth very much. Why do you think that is I think it's because the federal government has taken on so many powers that it's not supposed to. Again, if you go look at the list of things the federal government is supposed to be doing, it's pretty short. So the federal government is doing all kinds of stuff that it was never intended to do. Federal government was never supposed to run healthcare. The federal government was never supposed to do gun control. The Second Amendment makes that clear. The federal government is not supposed to do worker safety. None of that stuff is my schools might be a good example for our listeners too. What was that cool? Actually? Absolutely, that's a perfect education. Nowhere in the Constitution does the federal government have any power to run education. As a result of the fact that the federal government has taken on these rules that it wasn't supposed to, that's called usurpation. Is the fancy term I can call it stealing. It's stealing your power, it's stealing your state's power. Because of that, nobody wants to talk about the tenth and ninth Amendment, because if we did talk about that more, the federal wouldn't be able to do all these things. And there's a lot of people out there that think it's a good idea for the federal government to do a lot of things that it really shouldn't be doing. And in my opinion, the reason that you don't want the federal government doing all these things is because every place is different. There are fifty states, and there are hundreds of counties and cities, and there's different people in those places, and they have different values and different ideas. So why should we have one government far far away from where you might be say you have to do it this way. It's called decentralization. The system was supposed to be decentralized. It has become very centralized, with the federal government and doing almost everything, and as a result, the whole system is kind of off kilter and out of whack. And therefore we don't talk about the ninth and tenth Amendments because they go against the way that the country is kind of turned. Yeah. So one thing I love on the podcast you're just learning about history in general is how things always tied to other And when you were just talking about how the country is so big and so diverse, it made me think of what we talked about in our electoral College episode. You need to do what's best for everyone, and it's a lot of different people trying to make one big country work and doesn't. It's hard to do right, and that's exactly why the Constitution was written the way it was. If you look at the things that the federal government is supposed to do, there are things that really involve all of us, right, the idea of foreign relations, foreign trade, making treaties with other countries, that involves all of the states together. There are things of common interest. Those are the things that the federal government were supposed to do. James Madison in Federalists number forty five, if you've talked about the Federalist papers, these were papers that were written in support of the Constitution, and they kind of explain a lot of these weird terms that people might not understand. And James Madison said, the powers given to the federal government are few and defined, and those which remain to the states people are numerous and indefinite. And then he lists out the things that the federal government's supposed to do, and there's these things like war, peace, foreign relations, those kind of things involve all of us. Education doesn't need to involve all of us education can involve just your city or even just your family. Absolutely. So you mentioned, you know, in the federalist papers talking about these specific enumerated rights, and that leads us perfectly into Caroline's next question, which was who got to decide which power went to the state, the state, the people, the federal government. Who decided. That's a really good question, that's a very perceptive question. So it really goes back to when they drafted the constitution. So all the way back to the Philadelphia Convention some people call it the Constitutional Convention. There were delegates representatives from each state that went to that convention to create a constitution, and through lots of debates, they are kind of the ones that deter what powers the federal government were supposed to have. And because they all came from different states, they had different ideas. Some of the bigger states wanted one thing, some the smaller states would have rather had maybe a little more power for the federal government. So they compromised and they came up with the constitution that we got, and then once that was written, then it went too each state and every state had an election and they elected delegates representatives to go to their Convention, and those people representing the people at large decided whether or not they were going to ratify or accept the constitution. So really the people who decided ultimately were all of us when we accepted or not us. But the folks who ratified the constitution, they were the ones that decided they were going to accept it. And the delegates representing all of the different states in Philadelphia that wrote the constitution, they're the ones that came up with the framework. Okay, okay, So then as they're putting the Bill of Rights together, these two come right at the end. Why do you think that is, Well, it's kind of funny. I think it's really just a matter of form more than anything. I believe at one time, the tenth Amendment was actually first. And interestingly, when they very first proposed the amendments, they weren't at the end at all. They were actually put into the text of the Constitution, so you would have found these amendments actually in the Constitution itself in different places. They decided that was going to be kind of messy, unwieldy, wouldn't look good, so they decided to put them at the end. But there really is no there's no reason that those two come at the end other than the fact that they're a little bit different than the other eight, because they are again rules of construction or instructions that they kind of don't change the meaning, but don't read anything into the number. It's not because any or more or less important. It's just because that's how they numbered them. Interestingly, Thomas Jefferson once said that he that the tenth amend that was the very foundation of the Constitution, and it was the most important thing to understand about the Constitution. So it's not to diminish how important it is that it's tenth good. So something I always like to ask when we talk about a different amendment is, you know when the founders, you know, we know that they obviously were fighting back against a tyranny, and they felt it was really important to lay out exactly what was allowed. So how do you think they would feel about how it's going today? Are we living by the ninth and tenth Amendments. I think they would be absolutely shocked at how far we've drifted away from the true meaning and understanding of the Constitution. I think even people like Alexander Hamilton, who he wanted a more powerful national government than a lot of the other founders. I think even he would be shocked at how far it's that it's drifted away from the original meaning. And you know, you can kind of asked the question, well, why why has this happened? Right? We have the Constitution, it says what it says, everybody understood it when they were ratifying it. What happened along the way, And I think ultimately maybe we've relied a little bit too much on words on paper as opposed to being active and involved and actually putting our work into keeping the government in check. Even some of the founders, James Madison and others talked about constitutions being parchment barriers, paper barriers, and of course, if you ever know, if you put up a paper wall, I a walkway right through it. Right. Parchment barriers need enforcement, and that's what we try to do at the Tenth Amendment Center. It's really up to the people in the States. When the federal government does something that it's not supposed to, we need to stand up and say no, you can't do that, and take action to stop it. When we can do that, states don't have to help enforce federal laws or implement federal programs, and even the Supreme Court has said this, So we have a tool that we can use that the federal government's doing something it's not supposed to do, the state's going to say we're not going to cooperate with that, We're not going to do that. That's the way we could hold the constitution or hold the federal government in check, and we failed to do that. So really the blame falls on us, not on the constitution itself, and that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to get people more involved so that they're active at the state and local level and trying to do things to stop the federal government when it steps over its line. Do you think that our founders would be surprised that, you know, that growing federal government, the things that they've taken on. It wasn't necessarily that they came and took them, but sometimes the people ask for them to take it. Yeah, I don't know if they would be surprised. I'm sure that that was true in their day as well. I think they would probably be surprised that there weren't more people that stood up and opposed it. But human nature being what it is, we all like to get stuff, right, you know, if your parents are gonna come bringing toys, heyy great, you know, and you may not think about the fact that maybe there's some strings attached. You know, maybe if you get this toy, you're gonna have to do something that you didn't want to do. People don't think about that. They look at the things that they're going to get and they don't recognize the power that can be used against them. And a lot of very wise people in the Founding generation talked about the fact the power to do good also brings about the power to do evil. So I think it's most important to limit power completely, even when maybe it would do something that we like, because you always have to remember that when you give the government power today for something that you want to get done tomorrow, there may be somebody else in power that you don't like and they're still going to have that same authority. So it's very important to keep it limited. And people have not done that when instead they've run after the gifts and the goodies, and I think that's how we got where we are. Yeah, So what can we all be doing to kind of keep an eye on things and make sure it doesn't get too crazy. Well, I think the first thing is exactly what you're doing. Our education system has failed to teach the constitution, so we have whole generations of people who really don't know. I guarantee you that the young people listening to this right now have a better understanding of the Constitution than the vast majority of adults. So you've already taken the first step. You'll understand and you know, And that's important to educate people about what the Constitution really was supposed to mean, and how the federal government was supposed to be limited and why. And then as you get older and you can involve yourself in the political process, it's very important if you're going to vote, to find people to vote for that support true constitutional, fidelity, true constitutional you know that they're going to stick to it. And I think it's also to pay it important to pay attention to what's happening at your state and local level because it is there that we and push back. We can do things. You know, if the federal government passes a law enforcing, say, some kind of gun control that is unconstitutional, states don't have to enforce it. And if states don't enforce it, it's probably not going to get enforced because the federal government doesn't have enough people or enough resources to do it themselves. They always depend on state cooperation. So as you get older, don't just pay attention to what's happening in Washington, DC, but also pay attention to what's happening in your state capital and work to get people elected to represent you there that are going to stand firm and hold the line when the federal government tries to overstep its bounce. That's great advice, all right. So as we wrap it up today, what are the kind of the key things that we should keep in mind when we think about the ninth and tenth Amendments. I think the number one key thing to remember is the federal government can only do what is on the list, only exercise the powers that are in the Constitution itself. So if the federal government's going to do anything you hear the federal government's got a plan to do X, Y or Z, the first thing that you should do is go look at the constitution and say, Okay, where is this power? Does this power actually exist? If the federal government can do it, then we can debate whether it's a good idea or not. But if the federal government is not supposed to do it, if it's not listed, then they shouldn't do it, whether it's a good idea or not. And so the Ninth Amendment simply support this idea. So the thing that I would really hope folks remember is that the federal government is strictly limited to its given powers. That's really all the ninth and ten Amendment are saying. Yep, that's what it all comes down to. The power rests in the States, and then the people. Yes, absolutely, all right, Mike, thank you so much for joining us today and walking us through these two Yeah, thank you so much for having me as a pleasure. And there we go the very end of the Bill of Rights, which is the very end of the Constitution in the founding period. There were more amendments later, but we're really sticking to the founding period on this podcast. But if you're curious, you can always go look up the other amendments. We love all history here. So basically, the ninth Amendment says, just because something isn't listed as a right in the Constitution doesn't mean it's not a right. And then the Tenth Amendment says, just because something's not listed in the Constitution for the government, it definitely does mean that it's none of their business. That's not always how it works today. The American people do ask the federal government to do a lot of stuff that's not their job. So we just need to be careful because, like he said, when we give the government the power to do something, they have it pretty much forever. It's hard to get it back, and the next person who has that power might not be somebody you like very much. That's all for this episode, and I can't wait to see you for the next one. In the meantime. You can find us at Growing Patriots on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, and we also have a substack now at Extraordinary America. See you next time. The Great US all for Jeremy and they thought so we were America. This has been a presentation of the FCB podcast Network, where Real Talk Lives. Visit us online at FCB Podcasts dot com.
