Amending Constitution Day
Religion & Liberty Online

Amending Constitution Day

Today is Constitution Day in the United States.

It seems appropriate to remember especially this day the 10th Amendment to the Constitution:

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.

What a wonderful expression of federalism, a component feature of which is the concept of subsidiarity, or rather, coordinated and variegated sovereignty. Lord Acton said that federalism “is the best curb on democracy. [It] assigns limited powers to the central government. Thereby all power is limited. It excludes absolute power of the majority.” He also noted that federalism is “is coordination instead of subordination; association instead of hierarchical order; independent forces curbing each other; balance, therefore, liberty.”

I’m not greatly familiar with them, but it might be worth checking out the Tenth Amendment Center today. There’s more background on the Bill of Rights at the Stand to Reason blog today.

Jordan J. Ballor

Jordan J. Ballor (Dr. theol., University of Zurich; Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary) is director of research at the Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy, an initiative of the First Liberty Institute. He has previously held research positions at the Acton Institute and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and has authored multiple books, including a forthcoming introduction to the public theology of Abraham Kuyper. Working with Lexham Press, he served as a general editor for the 12 volume Abraham Kuyper Collected Works in Public Theology series, and his research can be found in publications including Journal of Markets & Morality, Journal of Religion, Scottish Journal of Theology, Reformation & Renaissance Review, Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Faith & Economics, and Calvin Theological Journal. He is also associate director of the Junius Institute for Digital Reformation Research at Calvin Theological Seminary and the Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity & Politics at Calvin University.