[Ten Megaton Solution]

The Tenth Amendment forbade the federal government from passing laws outside of those areas specifically granted to it by the Constitution. I'm no expert on the subject, and will not enter a detailed discussion on the Civil War, but the states that eventually formed the Confederacy were not fighting for the right to keep darkies in thrall. No, they were fighting against northern economic aggression.

Now, I've gone both ways on the rightness or wrongness of the Civil War, for various reasons, and will not now discuss it, but there's no denying that the Tenth Amendment became a dead letter when the war was over.

[justshutupandtakeit]

The tenth recognized the divided sovereignty which makes up federalism. States retained the power of policing, health and welfare regulations, i.e. local concerns. That did NOT include destroying the Union.

No state retained the right to do ANYTHING which would affect the Union.

Slave states fought the Civil War ENTIRELY because of their fear of losing their slaves. Every other excuse is just a lying rationalization. The North, it is true, did NOT fight to free the Slaves but to uphold the Constitutional Union.

The 10th never had much meaning and was initially put in to mollify the anti-Federalists: Slavers and Republican crooks.

It is still as relevent as ever as the differences in State legal codes show.