Conquer the TCOLE BPOC 2026 – Unleash Your Texas Constitution Smarts and Criminal Justice Prowess!

The distribution of power between national and state governments is defined by the Tenth Amendment. It states that powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. This establishes the principle of federalism: the federal government handles only the powers expressly given to it, while the remaining powers lie with the states (and the people).

That framework underpins states’ rights in many policy areas, such as education, policing, and local regulations, unless a specific federal law or constitutional provision requires otherwise. The other amendments focus on protecting individual rights or limiting federal power in particular respects (for example, freedoms of expression, due process, or enumerated rights retained by the people), but they do not articulate the broad reservation of powers to the states in the way the Tenth Amendment does.