Every year on Sept. 17, we mark Constitution Day — an opportunity to reflect both on the genius of the document, but also on the system of government it established. All too often, our political attention is fixated solely on Washington — Congress, the president, the Supreme Court. However, the Framers never intended for all authority to flow from the nation’s capital. They not only instituted horizontal separation of powers (legislative, executive and judicial) but also vertical separation of powers (national, state and local,). This structure provided the states with the authority to be a barrier or check against federal overreach.

The Constitution created a national government with limited and enumerated powers. The Tenth Amendment is very clear, “The powers not delegated to the United

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