Legal Summary: Constitution Day and Federal Employees

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, Library of Congress, Free Republic ^ | Today | John Filson (editor)

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Of course, then there's this little tidbit:

"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite."

-- James Madison, Federal No. 45, January 26, 1788

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And the 14th Amendment placed further limitations on the powers of state government - those aspects of the B of R have since been "incorporated" to make certain that states could not infringe the basic rights delineated in the B of R.

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I generally defer to the words of the guys who actually wrote the document:

"[The purpose of a written constitution is] to bind up the several branches of government by certain laws, which, when they transgress, their acts shall become nullities; to render unnecessary an appeal to the people, or in other words a rebellion, on every infraction of their rights, on the peril that their acquiescence shall be construed into an intention to surrender those rights."

-- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia Q.XIII, 1782. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, (Memorial Edition) Lipscomb and Bergh, editors, ME 2:178

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"[T]he powers of the federal government are enumerated; it can only operate in certain cases; it has legislative powers on defined and limited objects, beyond which it cannot extend its jurisdiction."

-- James Madison, Speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 6, 1788, Elliot's Debates (in the American Memory collection of the Library of Congress)

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"The only good bureaucrat is one with a pistol at his head. Put it in his hand and it's good-by to the Bill of Rights."

-- H.L. Mencken