What was the point of the Constitution?

In a Time article on the Constitution, Richard Stengel writes: “If the Constitution was intended to limit the federal government, it sure doesn’t say so.”

Yes, it does. The Tenth Amendment says: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Even before the adoption of the Bill of Rights, James Madison explained the original understanding of the document in Federalist 45: “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.”