The Articles of Confederation (the governing document of the United States from 1781 to 1789) rejected a national government with broad, elastic powers by stating in Article II, "Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the [U]nited [S]tates Congress assembled." The Articles rendered the national government powerless to raise revenue or call Congress into session without state approval. The inadequacy of a powerless central government under this type of federal system helped bring about the Philadelphia Convention of 1787.
On June 8, 1789, James Madison proposed a Bill of Rights in the first session of the newly created House of Representatives. The Twelfth Amendment read, "The powers not delegated by this constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively." (Schwartz, 1118) Thomas Tucker of South Carolina attempted to add "expressly," but Madison "objected to this amendment, because it was impossible to confine a Government to the exercise of express powers; there must necessarily be admitted powers by implication, unless the constitution descended to recount every minutia." Madison understood that what would ultimately become the Tenth Amendment ought to be more symbolic than substantive if the new Constitution was to be free from the same constraints that plagued the Articles of Confederation. In those same congressional debates Madison argued: .
Perhaps words which may define this [reservation of power] more precisely than the whole of the instrument now does, may be considered superfluous. I admit that they may be deemed unnecessary: but there can be no harm in making such a declaration, if [the] gentlemen will allow that the fact is as stated. I am sure I understand it so, and [I] do therefore propose it (Schwartz, 1033).
