Tenth Amendment Law and Legal Definition
The Tenth Amendment is also referred to as the Reserved Powers Amendment, providing that powers not granted to the United States were reserved to the states or to the people. Its purpose was to allay fears that the new national government might seek to exercise powers not granted, and that the states might not be able to exercise fully their reserved powers. It makes explicit the idea that the federal government is limited only to the powers it is explicitly granted.
The Tenth Amendment states:
"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."
