In Art I, Sec 8, the U.S. Constitution gives Congress only 17 “enumerated” powers; the powers not given to Congress are reserved to the States.  Congress’s authority to regulate foreign affairs is virtually unquestioned.  As to domestic affairs, Congress is empowered to regulate commerce among the several States, and may pass laws that are “necessary and proper” for carrying into execution the enumerated powers.  It is essentially these latter two provisions that form the basis for our present-day, out-of-control central government.

In Federalist No. 45, James Madison wrote the following:

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.

Thomas Jefferson, not long before his death, wrote that he saw “with the deepest affliction, the rapid strides with which the federal branch of our government is advancing toward the usurpation of all the rights reserved to the States, and the consolidation in itself of all powers, foreign and domestic; and that, too, by constructions which, if legitimate, leave no limits to their power.  (Letter to “Wm Giles, Dec 26, 1825.  If only Jefferson could see us now.

If we have the will to return to our roots (unlikely), we will better understand (as our Founding Fathers understood) that our lives, liberties, and property, and the internal order, improvements, and prosperity of the States are better left to the States, not to the Federal government.