See? I was right. It's all about the commerce clause. It's not legal framework that has changed since the nineteenth century, nor is it how the tenth amendment has been applied. It's the commerce that has changed. Local business isn't local anymore. Commerce went from small and primarily intrastate to being interstate. The tenth amendment does not prohibit changes in law to adapt to changes in commerce. The original intent, as you put it, expected horses to be the fastest means of travel, and did not envision the ability to go anywhere in the country, or, more importantly, ship goods anywhere in the country, in a single day.
One very key thing. While commerce is interstate over a large percentage, certainly moreso than in the early days of the republic there doesn't seem to be a trading dispute. Without the key dispute politicians are simply using the poor excuse that because more commerce is traded that it is subject to federal regulation which does not meet necessary and most of the regs are far from proper.
It's not a post civil war thing. It's a modern technology thing. It was the transcontinental railroad, not the war, that made all the difference. They just happened to take place in the same decade, so it's reasonable to mistake the real cause.
Actually, the first constitutional abuses came pre civil war which are the main reasons that tensions over slavery ignited into regional fracturing. Tariffs which violated the tenth were levied on southern cotton and northern factories bought the cotton at a sub standard rate as compared to european trading partners. There were more abuses but history is not my strongest subject. Post war the SCOTUS ruled that the states do not have the right to secede which is not found anywhere in the actual constitution and not even interpretable, because of this major loss the next century was set up to water down the constitution with federal immunity to any actual consequence. Wilsonian democracy, the Roosevelts, Nixon, and many other politicians used the expanding federal to circumvent constitutional protections and grossly watered down the ninth and tenth(especially the New Deal and LBJ's Great Society).
The tenth amendment does reserve specific powers to the federal government. The regulation of trade that exceeds the boundaries of a single state is one of those specific powers. It also has never been abused.
Actually, it is to resolve trade issues, not regulate just anything that crosses state lines. It was a willful misinterpretive process that has excluded the necessary argument of conflict that has led to the current thinking on the amendment. The interpretation of the tenth amendment that I'm relaying to you is not a new one.
It has been consistently held this way since its ratification. The most succinct statement of this was in US v. Sprague in 1931, but the decision in that case traces its roots all the way back to Martin v. Hunter's Lessee in 1816, which is also a landmark case in showing that federal decisions outweigh state ones in matters that expand beyond that single state. 1816, I might add, was long before the Civil War.
This is incorrect, the founders were for the most part very clear on decentralization within their writings, sure some did want a strong federal but the compromise was to limit the fedgov to it's most minimal effective scope. Later on politicians would bastardize this process.
I don't necessarily disagree with your interpretation that the federal government is indeed one of limited power. It is presumed not to be able to do something unless it has specific authorization to do it, and the tenth amendment is one such guarantee of that position. However, your view about the regulation of interstate commerce is unequipped to deal with commerce in the 21st century.
Actually, I disagree. Most states are compelled to keep their trading partners happy under free market competitive principles. We actually lose natural leverage when the federal steps in, for example Louisiana cannot get a fair price on oil leases and we have the lowest return on our oil trade but the federal handles that, if say.......California has an oil crunch and did not pay us a fair trade and chose Texas we could leverage Texas easily to withold suppy or change rates because our two states are interdependant on oil, if Cali had a problem they could in theory petition the federal government which would have no choice but to find for Louisiana because California would be involved in preferential trading practices which is constitutionally unsound. Similarly California could withold ag products or Silicone Valley goods if a state were to treat them unfairly etc. The idea is for the most sound trading, not a fully regulated market and as such if a state does have as problem with a federal action the federal is the final arbiter, this is not a good thing as obviously they will often find in their own favor.
If commerce were to settle itself into intrastate again, then the ability of the federal government to regulate it would be severely hampered. But it was not law that changed, but commerce.
Honestly it comes down to dispute, barring that the federal really should **** off.(no disrespect to you, rather the federal)
What I must staunchly disagree with is your notion that the view of the tenth amendment has changed over time. It hasn't. This is not opinion, but the summation of what dozens of supreme court justices have said in their decisions over the last two centuries. If you want a way to reduce the power of the federal government (something I disagree with, as I see no intrinsic benefit to giving states more power and plenty of detriment), the tenth amendment isn't it.
Most of the public doesn't really concern itself with the constitution I'm afraid, at least that is my perception. That being said I feel that most people probably don't have a view on the tenth and either generally reject or accept either the federalist or anti-federalist arguments instinctively. As well I will still assert that some politicians on the federal level may still understand the tenth as it was posited and willfully mis-apply it, and I wouldn't be surprised if some have bought the "new view" of said BOR amendment.