You write:
“As you know, the Bill of Rights is not intended to empower the people, power inherently belongs to the people as a birthright.”
Well, yes, I make it clear that it delineates what the founders believed were inherent rights.
You further write:
“The Bill of Rights was intended to clarify that relationship and make special protections just in case either the state or federal governments tried to overstep their bounds.”
Any document intended to ‘clarify’ and make special ‘protections’ to our inherent rights — such as the bill of rights — is empowering in the sense that it confirms those inherent rights.
I also understand that these delineated rights do not preclude other rights of the people, as the 10th amendment makes clear:
‘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.’
http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Am10
I agree with you when you say that ‘The 10th Amendment is probably the least quoted of the amendments and yet is the most far reaching and powerful of them all.’
You sound like someone with a great understanding of the constitution.
Thanks for the reply.
STE=Q
Unfortunately, the prevailing wisdom is that the 10th Amendment is superfluous and unnecessary as it is simply the statement of a ‘truism’. It may be a statement of fact, yet every day laws are passed which infringe on existing rights and go unchallenged. The 10th amendment, like the rest of the amendments was put in as a precaution, yet is is completely ignored for the most part. The flip side of this is that practically every law passed takes away our right to do something or another and that if the 10th were exercised to it’s utmost it would be hard for legislators to pass anything. I suspect this is what the founders had in mind. It’s a shame because anything worth doing should be able to withstand vigorous debate. I’m by no means a constitutional expert, but that’s the way things appear from my corner of the swamp.