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Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- CONTENTS -- INTRODUCTION -- CHAPTER ONE: LIMITING FEDERAL POWER -- Finding a Balance -- A First Attempt -- Strengthening a Rope of Sand -- Second Thoughts: Amending the New Constitution -- CHAPTER TWO: THE TENTH AMENDMENT AND STATES' RIGHTS -- Opposing Views -- Troubled Times -- The Issue of Slavery -- CHAPTER THREE: THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT WINS SOME AND LOSES SOME -- A Country in Need -- Three Clauses -- Gun Rulings -- CHAPTER FOUR: FEDERALISM AND STATES' RIGHTS TODAY -- No Child Left Behind/Race to the Top -- Real ID -- Gun Manufacturing and Monitoring -- Future Issues -- AMENDMENTS TO THE U.S. CONSTITUTION -- Proposed but Unratified Amendments -- GLOSSARY -- FOR MORE INFORMATION -- Web Sites -- FOR FURTHER READING -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- INDEX -- About the Author -- Photo Credits

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Introduction -- Uniting the States Under a Federal Government -- Clear Divisions and the Imbalance of Powers -- The Tenth Amendment in the Twentieth Century -- The Roles of Federal and State Governments Today -- The Bill of Rights -- Bibliography -- Glossary -- Further Reading -- Index -- Back Cover.

It has become commonplace to describe the Rehnquist Court as having staged a "Federalism Revolution." Although the current status of the Revolution is in dispute, historical treatment of the Supreme Court's jurisprudence under Chief Justice Rehnquist no doubt will emphasize a resurgence of federalism and limited construction of federal power. Cases like Gregory v. Ashcroft, New York v. United States, United States v. Lopez, Printz v. United States, Alden v. Maine, and United States v. Morrison all share a common rule of interpretation: Narrow construction of federal power to interfere with matters believed best left under state control. The textual hook for this rule of strict construction has been the Tenth Amendment. The Court's reliance on the Tenth Amendment has been the source of unrelenting scholarly criticism, particularly because the amendment itself literally does nothing more than announce a mere "truism": Those powers not delegated are reserved. It says nothing about whether delegated powers are to be broadly or strictly construed. As I have written in two previous articles, Founders such as James Madison believed that the Ninth Amendment, not the Tenth, established a rule of strict construction. In this article, I address how it came to pass that the Tenth Amendment, and not the Ninth, became accepted as an independent rule of strict construction. Ironically, it was Madison himself who drafted the document that would establish the Tenth Amendment as the primary guarantor of constitutional federalism. Madison's 1800 "Report on the Virginia Resolutions" denounced the Alien and Sedition Acts as exceeding Congress's enumerated powers and thus intruded upon the retained rights of the states in violation of the Tenth Amendment. His Report became a canonical document in the 19th century states' rights movement and transformed the Tenth Amendment into a symbolic declaration of limited federal power.

Forren reviews The Tenth Amendment and State Sovereignty: Constitutional History and Contemporary Issues edited by Mark R. Killenbeck.

In July 2016, residents of Timberon, a small town located on the edge of Lincoln National Forest in Otero County, New Mexico, returned home to find their houses reduced to ashes. They were victims of a forest fire that had quickly spread due to the dry, arid conditions in Otero County. Unfortunately, such scenes are all too common. Wildfires burning throughout the country have become a growing national concern. Time and time again people are forced to evacuate their homes because forest fires, fueled by dry undergrowth, have burned their communities. When a community is faced with such dangers it must protect itself. This same rationale motivated the Board of County Commissioners of the County of Otero to take preemptive measures to thin and clear dangerous dry undergrowth that posed a serious conflagratory threat of causing the same destruction residents of Timberon experienced. Otero County's protective measures, however, were halted by the Federal Government, who used authority granted to it by the Property Clause of the Federal Constitution to assert complete authority over National Forest land in Otero County.

The papers that guide our country -- Federalists and anti-federalists -- Was the constitution enough? -- Adding a Bill of Rights -- The last two amendments -- The Ninth Amendment -- The right to privacy -- Griswold vs. Connecticut -- The Tenth Amendment -- Careful wording -- Is the Tenth Amendment necessary? -- States' rights and discrimination -- Defending the Tenth -- Strong and in-check