ABSTRACT
The federal government cannot account for or accommodate the nuances of such local matters, just as local governments couldn’t hope to independently provide for the national defense. The federal government was designed to have limited powers, with the states and the people having broad authority. The constitution “enumerates” specific powers delegated to the federal government. The federal government was designed to have limited powers, with the states and the people having all the rest. In place of a king reigning over our government, the framers of the US Constitution established a system of “checks and balances.”The Constitution was drawn up in an era when, throughout the world, the power of a country was typically focused on lone “sovereigns,” or supreme rulers, sometimes known as “kings” and “queens.”The Constitution also contains a list of powers effectively forbidden to the states.
