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Article: Enumerated Powers
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
- Author:
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ENUMERATED POWERS
ENUMERATED POWERS
are powers given to the federal government by the terms of the U.S. Constitution. The question whether the Constitution also should be understood to give the federal government unenumerated powers was the central issue in nineteenth century constitutional disputations. Under Article II of the Articles of Confederation, the Confederation Congress's powers were limited to those explicitly granted by that document. This limitation on the federal legislature's powers, when coupled with the extreme difficulty of changing a constitution whose amendment required the unanimous agreement of the thirteen states, stymied several nationalist initiatives in the ...