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States that rights not enumerated in the Constitution are retained by the people. September 25, 1789 December 15, 1791 2 years, 81 days 10th [21] States that the federal government possesses only those powers delegated, or enumerated, to it through the Constitution, and that all other powers are reserved to the states, or to the people.
The Tenth Amendment (Amendment X) to the United States Constitution, a part of the Bill of Rights, was ratified on December 15, 1791. [1] It expresses the principle of federalism, whereby the federal government and the individual states share power, by mutual agreement, with the federal government having the supremacy.
The Guarantee Clause of Article 4 of the Constitution states that "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government." These two provisions indicate states did not surrender their wide latitude to adopt a constitution, the fundamental documents of state law, when the U.S. Constitution was adopted.
The Constitution of the United States is the oldest and longest-standing written and codified national constitution in force in the world. [ 4 ] [ a ] The drafting of the Constitution , often referred to as its framing, was completed at the Constitutional Convention , which assembled at Independence Hall in Philadelphia between May 25 and ...
The United States comprises 50 states: 9 of the Thirteen Colonies that were already part of the United States at the time the Constitution took effect in 1789, 4 that ratified the Constitution after its commencement, plus 37 that have been admitted since by Congress as authorized under Article IV, Section 3 of the Constitution. [2]
The Constitution went into effect on June 21, 1788, in the nine states that had ratified it, and the U.S. federal government began operations under it on March 4, 1789, when it was in effect in 11 out of the 13 states. [1] Since then, 37 states have been admitted into the Union.
Besides the four aforementioned states, other states have also on occasion used the term "commonwealth" to refer to themselves: The term "commonwealth" is used interchangeably with the term "state" in the Constitution of Vermont, [11] but the act of Congress admitting that state to the Union calls it "the State of Vermont."
The United States of America is a federal republic [1] consisting of 50 states, a federal district (Washington, D.C., the capital city of the United States), five major territories, and various minor islands. [2] [3] Both the states and the United States as a whole are each sovereign jurisdictions. [4]