"Much of the recent revival of interest in the Constitution centers around...."

"Much of the recent revival of interest in the Constitution centers around the Bill of Rights and the war on terror, a subject I discuss elsewhere in this book.  I could not be more sympathetic to these concerns.  However, Americans must remember that the Constitution was designed not merely to prevent the federal government from violating the rights that later appeared in the Bill of Rights.  It was also intended to limit the federal government's overall scope.  Article I, Section 8, lists the powers of Congress.  Common law held such lists of powers to be exhaustive.

According to the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, all powers not delegated to the federal government by the states (in Article I, Section 8) and not prohibited to the states in the Constitution (in Article 1, Section 10) are reserved to the states or to the people.  Thomas Jefferson held that this principle formed the very foundation of our Constitution.  It was a guarantee that the experience Americans endured under the British would not be repeated, and that political decisions would be made by their own local legislature rather than by a distant central government that would be much more difficult, if not impossible, for them to control." -Pages 44 & 45 of The Revolution, A Manifesto