powers of government are, with us, trust powers, should conclude that the powers said to be granted and surrendered by the States, are absolutely transferred from them to the government of the United States — as is sometimes alleged — or to the people as constituting one nation, as is more usually understood — and, thence, to infer that the government is national to the extent of the granted powers.
But that such inference and conclusion are utterly unwarrantable — that the powers in the constitution called granted powers, are, in fact, delegated powers — powers granted in trust — and not absolutely transferred — we have, in addition to the reasons just stated, the clear and decisive authority of the constitution itself. Its tenth amended article provides that "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."
In order to understand the full force of this provision, it is necessary to state that this is one of the amended articles, adopted at the recommendation of several of the conventions of the States, contemporaneously with the ratification of the constitution — in order to supply what were thought to be its defects — and to guard against misconceptions of its meaning. It is admitted, that its principal object was to prevent the reserved from being drawn within the sphere of the granted powers, by the force of construction — a danger, which, at the time, excited great, and, as experience has proved, just apprehension. But in guarding against this danger, care was
