What do the last four words of the Tenth Amendment mean? The Tenth Amendment to US Constitution says (emphasis added): 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 am curious about those last four words. Their inclusion, separate from the mention of the States, seems to imply some distinction, but its nature is unclear. Has there ever been any legal investigation of this? Has anyone ever attempted to support any legal position with those words? Did they succeed? Who, in short, are "the people", and what powers (if any) do these words grant them? Or are the words legally inert?
What appears to be the controlling case is DC v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570. In Heller, the meaning of "Right of the People" is relevant, and the court finds that in three instances in The Constitution, these instances unambiguously refer to individual rights, not 'collective' rights, or rights that may be exercised only through participation in some corporate body" However, Art. 1 Sec 2 of The Constitution says that "the people" will select members of The House, and then there is the 10th: Heller says that Those provisions arguably refer to 'the people' acting collectively—but they deal with the exercise or reservation of powers, not rights In other words, "the people" can act collectively, but "the people" have individual rights. In the remaining cases of "the people", the expression "unambiguously refers to all members of the political community, not an unspecified subset". We are then directed to US v. Verdugo-Urquidez 494 U.S. 259, which is a warrantless search case involving a Mexican citizen and a search in Mexico, and the part that Heller finds relevant is that ‘[T]he people’ seems to have been a term of art employed in select parts of the Constitution… . [Its uses] sugges[t] that ‘the people’ protected by the Fourth Amendment, and by the First and Second Amendments, and to whom rights and powers are reserved in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, refers to a class of persons who are part of a national community or who have otherwise developed sufficient connection with this country to be considered part of that community." In other case law, Underwager v. Channel 9 Australia, F.3d 361 which cites US v. Barona, 56 F.3d 1087 it is likewise said that constitutional rights expressly limited to the "people," such as those created by the Fourth Amendment, are held only by "a class of persons who are part of a national community or who have otherwise developed sufficient connection with this country to be considered part of that community" "The People" thus starts from identifying "a national community", and then if the context is about rights, each such individual has the right, but in the context of powers, the collective has it.
It's supposed to be carte blanche, i.e. "blank check". The quotation has left out several words. You can find the full decision at https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/458/176/case.html. The complete sentence is: It thus seems that the dissent would give the courts carte blanche to impose upon the States whatever burden their various judgments indicate should be imposed.
Prior to the 14th and 15th amendments, the US Federal Constitution and the Federal laws passed under it neither allowed nor denied anyone the right to vote. The decisions on who would and would not be allowed to vote, including for members of Congress and for President, was wholly in the hands of the sates, and were regulated by the various state constitutions and laws. A few states permitted women to vote, and at least one permitted free blacks to vote, at least for a period of its history. The Federal government had nothing to say on the matter. In at lesat one case the US Supreme Court refused to consider such a question. That was the case of Luther v. Borden, 48 U.S. (7 How.) 1 (1849) which grew out of the Dorr Rebellion The state of Rhode Island, had retained its pre-revolutionary charter (dating from 1663) as its constitution, and required the ownership of a significant amount of landed property as a qualification to vote. The Wikipedia article on the rebellion (linked above) states: By 1829, 60% of the state's free white men were ineligible to vote (women and most non-white men were prohibited from voting). In 1841 a group led by Thomas Wilson Dorr held a convention to draft a new state Constitution, (known as the &quot;People's Constitution&quot;), and held ratifying votes on the draft. They declared that it had been approved by a majority of those qualified under the old laws as well as a majority of those voting and qualified under the new rules, and that it was therefore the valid constitution of the state. The old (charter) government said this was invalid and illegal. Attempts to establish the new government by force failed. However, a revised state constitution that greatly expanded voting rights was passed and took effect in 1843. Luther v. Borden was a case of trespass against members of the militia acting under the charter government, brought by a supporter of Dorr. The plaintiffs brought extensive evidence (over 150 pages) intended to establish that the Dorr or &quot;People's&quot; constitution had been validly ratified by a majority of voters, and that the old constitution had improperly restricted voting rights. The case went to the US Supreme Court, where Chief Justice Taney wrote in the majority opinion: The plaintiff contends that the charter government was displaced, and ceased to have any lawful power, after the organization, in May, 1842, of the government which he supported, and although that government never was able to exercise any authority in the State nor to command obedience to its laws or to its officers, yet he insists that it was the lawful and established government upon the ground that it was ratified by a large majority of the male people of the State of the age of twenty-one and upwards, and also by a majority of those who were entitled to vote for general officers under the then existing laws of the State. ... The point, then, raised here has been already decided by the courts of Rhode Island. The question relates altogether to the constitution and laws of that State, and the well settled rule in this court is that the courts of the United States adopt and follow the decisions of the State courts in questions which concern merely the constitution and laws of the State. Besides, if the Circuit Court had entered upon this inquiry, by what rule could it have determined the qualification of voters upon the adoption or rejection of the proposed constitution unless there was some previous law of the State to guide it? It is the province of a court to expound the law, not to make it. And certainly it is no part of the judicial functions of any court of the United States to prescribe the qualification of voters in a State, giving the right to those to whom it is denied by the written and established constitution and laws of the State, or taking it away from those to whom it is given; nor has it the right to determine what political privileges the citizens of a State are entitled to, unless there is an established constitution or law to govern its decision. {emphasis added} Thus, until the passage and ratification of the 14th and 15th amendments, which forbid states to deny the vote based on race, national origin, and a few other grounds, the Federal Constitution had nothing to say on the point. States were required to grant the right to vote to women by the 19th amendment in 1920, and the 26th (1971) prohibited denial on the ground of age to anyone 18 or older. The 24th (1964) prohibited denial for failure to pay a poll tax or any other tax. The 14th amendment has been held to guarantee the equal weight of votes, in what was at first known as the &quot;one man, one vote&quot; rule (later &quot;one person, one vote&quot;) and has been used to overturn individual and group denials of voting rights. But there were no federal voting rights in the years before 1865. I am not aware of any writings by any of the &quot;founding fathers&quot; (say the members of the Constitutional Convention) that seriously discuss the possibility of a female President. But they did consider and endorse the possibility of a person being elected president who might not be qualified to vote in some of the states. They declined to impose, or permit Congress to impose, a property, or other variable, qualification on the president, even though many of the original states had property qualifications for voters. Options for this were proposed and voted down in the Convention's drafting process.
Volokh commented on this. There is no 2nd Amendment issue, nor does federal law. It may be illegal in some states, depending on whether age is included in public accommodation anti-discrimination laws. For instance, Conn. Gen. Stat. §§46a-64 says (a) It shall be a discriminatory practice in violation of this section: (1) To deny any person within the jurisdiction of this state full and equal accommodations in any place of public accommodation, resort or amusement because of race, creed, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, gender identity or expression, marital status, age, lawful source of income, intellectual disability, mental disability or physical disability, including, but not limited to, blindness or deafness of the applicant, subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law and applicable alike to all persons; §46a-63 defines "public accommodation" (1) “Place of public accommodation, resort or amusement” means any establishment which caters or offers its services or facilities or goods to the general public, including, but not limited to, any commercial property or building lot, on which it is intended that a commercial building will be constructed or offered for sale or rent Public accomodation laws are how states deal with discrimination in sales, such as selling wedding cakes Illinois 775 ILCS 5/1-103 likewise prohibits age discrimination in public accomodations, but defines "age" as "the chronological age of a person who is at least 40 years old". Connecticut used to define "age" as "any age between forty and sixty-five, inclusive", but that clause was deleted. Lousiana also prohibits age discrimination (La. Rev. Stat. §51:2247). Their statement about age likewise limits anti-discrimination protection to "individuals who are at least forty years of age". Maryland in MD State Govt Code § 20-304 also bans age discrimination, and does not redefine "age" or limit the scope of those ages that are protected. So while it is generally legal to refuse to sell goods to the young (and sometimes mandatory, e.g. alcohol, firearms, tobacco), there are a few states where such a policy would violate state anti-discrimination laws. There can also be city laws (Seattle has very broad anti-discrimination laws), but they exclude age from the Public Accommodation subset of discrimination.
Let's look at the Ur-example of a free-speech law, and the most wide-ranging, the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. It says (my emphasis): Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. This limitation applies only to the government. Indeed, it has been argued that this limitation only applies to the legislative branch of government and not to the executive (except when exercising legislatively delegated power) or judicial branches. Certainly, the courts have held that it is within their power to issue "gag" restraining orders. Notwithstanding, it imposes no restrictions on how non-government actors can limit your free speech. The owner of a shopping centre can require you not to evangelise, the owner of a stadium can require you not to use offensive language and the owner of a social media platform can restrict your speech in any way they wish. You have a right to talk - they have a right not to give you a platform.
No, it means the following are eligible: Natural born citizens Citizens of the United States, at the time of the adoption of the constitution The second part was to allow people that were citizens of the US in 1788 (but were obviously not "natural born citizens", since the US didn't exist when they were born) to be eligible for the Presidency. Check out Alexander Hamilton's draft of this clause: No person shall be eligible to the office of President of the United States unless he be now a Citizen of one of the States, or hereafter be born a Citizen of the United States.
This was asked and answered by KPD on the Politics stackexchange. This issue came up in a decision from an appeals court, with a judge dying before the opinion was released, leading to the following SCOTUS opinion. The short of the answer: that Judge's vote is voided. If the result of negating the deceased Justice's vote is a 4-4 tie, then the usual procedure for a 4-4 tie is invoked, which is addressed in the Q&amp;A you link. Of course this assumes that SCOTUS will apply this to themselves, but the issue appears to be non-controversial, as it was a fairly recent decision with no dissents noted. So this assumption seems safe.
There are no cases interpreting the Second Amendment to have that meaning at this time. Even when regulations on corporate gun dealers are held unconstitutional, this holding, thus far, has always been because the regulations burden the rights of natural persons who own guns to bear arms. But, while corporations do not have the right themselves, they do have standing to bring suit regarding regulations of their corporations that burden the Second Amendment rights of their customers in a way that allegedly violated the right.