Los Angeles Tech Writer

Whether or not you agree with Mark Twain's statement that "If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed," the daily news reports of more and more federal controls being proposed (and instituted) - national health care, global and national financial market regulation, military cyber security, nationalization of banks and U.S. companies - have become increasingly disconcerting to me.

Today, while researching relative to Bruce Wiseman's recommendation that we inform our federal legislators that their official action is required to bring the Bank of International Settlements' Financial Stability Board under Congressional control, I happened across a mention that more than twenty U.S. states have recently passed resolutions affirming their 10th Amendment rights.

Which is the 10th Amendment, again, you ask?

The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States:

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.

I further discovered that thirty-six state legislatures have introduced such resolutions, with only three failing to pass. And this movement has begun only this year? That is interesting.

Most of the states' resolutions are brief and quite similar in their wording, and require that a copy of the resolution be forwarded to Congress. The state of Georgia's strongly-worded resolution, however, incorporates most of the points contained in Thomas Jefferson's Kentucky Resolutions of 1798.

The Kentucky Resolutions (as well as the Virginia Resolutions, authored by James Madison) elaborated upon the powers and limits of the federal government as delineated by the Constitution, and were in protest to two laws passed by Congress that were considered a serious usurpations of the states' powers. To learn more, click Alien & Sedition Acts to open a Google search window.

So if, like me, you have been wondering whether it might be a good idea to refresh your memory on the actual founding principles, duties and restrictions of the federal government of the United States, either the Georgia Senate sovereignty resolution or the original Kentucky Resolutions is worth a read.

See a map of states with current sovereignty resolutions here.