Today is Constitution Day in the United States.

It seems appropriate to remember especially this day the 10th Amendment to the Constitution:

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.

What a wonderful expression of federalism, ponent feature of which is the concept of subsidiarity, or rather, coordinated and variegated sovereignty. Lord Acton said that federalism “is the best curb on democracy. [It] assigns limited powers to the central government. Thereby all power is limited. It excludes absolute power of the majority.” He also noted that federalism is “is coordination instead of subordination; association instead of hierarchical order; independent forces curbing each other; balance, therefore, liberty.”

I’m not greatly familiar with them, but it might be worth checking out the Tenth Amendment Center today. There’s more background on the Bill of Rights at the Stand to Reason blog today.