Centre Democrat. [volume] (Bellefonte, Pa.) 1848-1989, 1880-04-15
State and Popular Rights.

S"iuiesS vi popular rlBnts, ana lne
time-honored doctrine of local self
government, the entire tendency of
radical administration has been and
is to-day towards an unconstitutional
Capitalization of all power in the gen.
eral government at the expense of the
reserved rights of the people and the
States. Unless this tendency towards
the exercise of unwarranted power is
checked in time it will not be long
until the whole practice of govern
ment is changed, and we will find our
selves ruled exclusively from above,
instead of the people ruling from be-
low according to the true Democratic
theory upon which the fathers found
ed the Federal government. In
timely article upon this subject the
Philadelphia Record remarks that "the
first ten amendments of the Federal
Constitution are decalogue of State
and popular rights. Though not en-
bodied in the instrument as originally
framed, they were adopted almost SIM
ultaneously with it, having every one
of them been proposed by some one or
other of the States as conditions of
their acceptance of it as the compact
of organic union. They all operate
as general restrictions upon the powers
of Congress, and they are for the most
part affirmative either of the inaliena-
bic rights of individuals, or of the
civil and political rights substituted
as compensation for their surrender.
They were manifestly adopted from
superabundant caution, inasmuch rs
the rights they guarantee would seem
to have been already sufficiently guard
ed by the State Constitutions and bills
of rights. TO forestall any infringe
ment of them Mt the hands of the CEN
tral Government patriotic solicitude
for the popular liberties and for the
cardinal rights of the great munich
palities that compose the Union in
sisted upon their solemn and specific
affirmation in that national charter
which was to be the supreme law of
the land" The 9th and 10th amend
ments are especially significant. They
provide that "the enumeration in the
Constitution of certain rights shall not
be construed to deny or disparage 9TH
ers retained by the people, and that
"the powers not delegated to the Unit
ed States by the Constitution, nor pro-
hibited by it to the States, are reserved
to the States respectively or to the
people" There is an essential unity
in these provisions, and they might
have been embodied logically in a
single statement. The one was intend
ed to anticipate and preclude any per-
verse ingenious misapplication of the
maxim ezpressio uni,s est erciusid alter
ius-that an affirmation in particular
cases implies negation in all others.
The other merely afiirms q necessary
rule for interpreting the Constitution,
which being an instrument of limited
and enumerated powers what is not con-
ferred by it is withheld and retained
by the State Governments If vested in
them by their Constitutions, and il not
so vested remains with the people as
a part of their residuary sovereignty.
Were it not for this provision color
might be found for the claim that un-
formulated powers-those not defined
in either the Federal or the State Con-
stitutions-might be asserted by the
national authority.
The utmost that can be claimed by
the advocates and promoters Of Gen.
tralization under the tenth amend
ment is that it does not confne. the
Federal Government to the exercise of
express powers; for implied powers
must necessarily have been admitted
unless the Constitution had descended
to the regulation of the minutest de-
tails of legislation. 1t is . general
principle that all bodies polite possess
all the powers incident to corporate