The following are remarks delivered by Texas Nationalist Movement President Daniel Miller at the Constitution Essay Contest and Scholarship Banquet Sponsored by Republican Women of Yoakum Area on November 13, 2024.

Thank you to the Republican Women of Yoakum Area for inviting me to speak today, and congratulations to all of today’s winners and participants. Writing about our Constitution isn’t easy – it requires serious thought about complex ideas that have shaped our world for over two centuries.

When I was your age, sitting where you are now, I wasn’t thinking much about constitutions or amendments. Like most high school seniors, I was focused on what came next – college, career, the whole world that waited after graduation. But what I’ve learned since then, what I hope to share with you today, is that understanding these fundamental principles of government isn’t just academic exercise – it directly affects every aspect of those plans we’re all so busy making for our futures.

The 10th Amendment to our Constitution reads: ‘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.’

Twenty-eight words. That’s it. But these words were meant to be the keystone of our entire system of government – the guarantee that would protect the right of Texans to govern Texas. These words are why Article 1 Section 1 of our Texas Constitution can proudly declare that ‘Texas is a free and independent State, subject only to the Constitution of the United States.’

Today, I want to talk about why those twenty-eight words matter more now than ever before, and why your generation’s understanding of them is crucial to the future of Texas.

To understand why the 10th Amendment matters, we have to understand what the Founders were trying to create. They weren’t building a national government to rule over the states. They were creating a federal system where sovereign states would work together on specific shared challenges while maintaining their independence in all other matters.

James Madison, who we often call the Father of the Constitution, made this crystal clear in Federalist 45 when he wrote: ‘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.’

Think about that for a moment. Few and defined versus numerous and indefinite. It’s like when your parents give you permission to use their car. They might say ‘You can drive to school, work, and church.’ That’s few and defined. They’re not giving you permission to take their car anywhere else you want to go. The Constitution works the same way – the states gave the federal government permission to handle specific tasks, not to take control of everything.

The Founders were so serious about these limits that they spelled out exactly what states couldn’t do in Article 1, Section 10 of the Constitution. States can’t make treaties with foreign countries, coin money, or grant titles of nobility. The fact that they had to specifically list these prohibitions proves something crucial – anything not specifically prohibited or delegated to the federal government belongs to the states.

Alexander Hamilton, who favored a stronger central government than most of the Founders, still had to admit this truth. In Federalist 32 he wrote: ‘The State governments would clearly retain all rights of sovereignty which they before had, and which were not, by that act, exclusively delegated to the United States.’

This wasn’t some minor detail to the Founders. Several states, including New York and Virginia, only agreed to ratify the Constitution after receiving assurances that a Bill of Rights would be added specifically protecting state sovereignty. They understood something that we seem to have forgotten – that liberty is best preserved when government is kept close to home, where the people can watch it, guide it, and if necessary, correct it.

Fisher Ames, speaking at the Massachusetts ratification convention, put it perfectly when he said: ‘A consolidation of the States would subvert the new Constitution. The State Governments represent the wishes and feelings, and local interests of the people. They are the safeguard and ornament of the Constitution; they will protract the period of our liberties; they will afford a shelter against the abuse of power.'”

Texas’s relationship with these constitutional principles is unique because we entered the Union as an independent nation. When we joined in 1845, it wasn’t because we had to – it was because we chose to, and we did so with clear understanding of what that choice meant.

Our own state constitution makes this crystal clear. Article 1 Section 1 declares that ‘Texas is a free and independent State, subject only to the Constitution of the United States, and the maintenance of our free institutions and the perpetuity of the Union depend upon the preservation of the right of local self-government, unimpaired to all the States.’

Notice something important there – our state constitution directly ties the survival of the Union to the preservation of local self-government. Our founders weren’t just writing flowery words. They understood something fundamental about liberty – that it can only truly exist when people have direct control over the governments that affect their daily lives.

Think about it. Texas is larger than most countries in Europe. We have our own power grid. We’re the world’s 8th  largest economy. We have more farms and ranches than any other state. We produce more energy than any other state. We lead the union in exports. Does it make sense for bureaucrats two thousand miles away in Washington to be making decisions about how we manage these resources?

Sam Houston, speaking about Texas sovereignty, said ‘Texas will again lift its head and stand among the nations. It ought to do so, for no country upon the globe can compare with it in natural advantages.’

But our advantages aren’t just natural – they come from our unique culture of self-reliance and local control. When Texas joined the Union, we brought with us a history of self-government and independence that shapes how we think about these issues even today.

Stephen F. Austin, writing in 1836, emphasized this point when discussing the sources of conflict between Texas and the Mexican government. He wrote that Texas had retained within its own control ‘the rights and powers which appertained to her as one of the unities or distinct societies.’ That principle – that we retain our fundamental rights as a distinct society – is exactly what the 10th Amendment was meant to protect.

For us, these aren’t just abstract principles. They affect everything from how we educate our children to how we run our businesses to how we protect our communities. Every time federal bureaucrats try to impose one-size-fits-all solutions on Texas, they’re not just violating the Constitution – they’re threatening our ability to make the decisions that best serve our unique needs and circumstances.

Right now, you’re sitting in a Texas classroom that’s being influenced by federal mandates and regulations that your parents, your teachers, and your local school board never asked for and don’t want. That’s not how it’s supposed to work. Education is not one of those ‘few and defined’ powers that the states gave to the federal government.

But education is just the tip of the iceberg. The Federal Government has grown into a bureaucratic superstate with over 440 separate agencies enforcing more than 180,000 pages of federal regulations. To put that in perspective, if you laid every page of federal regulations end-to-end, they would stretch over 32 miles.

Here’s something that should concern you – no one, not even the Federal Government itself, knows exactly how many federal laws exist. In 1982, the Justice Department tried to count the total number of federal criminal laws. After two years, they gave up. The lead attorney on the project said, ‘You will have died and been resurrected three times and still not have an answer to this question.’

The Federal Government takes approximately $265 billion per year in taxes from Texans. But do you know how much of that money comes back to Texas? Only about $162 billion. That’s a $103 billion annual deficit. To put that in perspective, the damage from Hurricane Harvey was estimated at $75 billion. This means the Federal Government takes from Texas the equivalent of a Hurricane Harvey-sized chunk of money every nine months.

Your generation will be the first to fully feel the weight of this unsustainable system. The federal debt has now exceeded $34 trillion. That’s over $100,000 for every man, woman, and child in Texas. You didn’t create this debt, but they expect you to pay for it. That money will come out of your future paychecks, out of your future businesses, out of your children’s future opportunities.

Let me share something that happened in our Texas Legislature that shows exactly how federal overreach affects us. In 2011, Texas tried to pass a law protecting its citizens from invasive TSA searches at our airports. The Federal Government’s response? They threatened to shut down all air travel in Texas if we passed it. That’s not federal authority – that’s federal bullying.

Even more concerning is what this expansion of federal power means for your future. A study published in the Journal of Economic Growth found that federal regulations over the past six decades have cut economic growth by an average of 2 percentage points per year. What does that mean in real terms? The average household receives about $277,000 less annually than it would have gotten in the absence of federal overregulation.

Dr. Patrick McLaughlin, testifying before Congress, explained how these regulations particularly hurt young people entering the workforce: ‘They have regressive effects caused by increasing prices… and make it more difficult for entrepreneurs to start their own businesses and begin the climb up the income ladder.’

Your generation faces unprecedented challenges. The Federal Government’s unfunded obligations – promises they’ve made but can’t pay for – now exceed $160 trillion. Social Security, which you’re paying into right now, is projected to be insolvent before most of you reach middle age. Medicare faces similar challenges. These aren’t just numbers – they represent real impacts on your future quality of life.

The Founders gave us the 10th Amendment precisely to prevent this kind of federal overreach. James Madison warned us that ‘There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.’

The truth is, if we don’t reverse course, your generation will be the first in American history to have fewer opportunities than your parents. You’ll be paying higher taxes for fewer services, dealing with more regulations while having less freedom, and watching as decisions that affect your daily life are increasingly made by unelected bureaucrats thousands of miles away.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. The 10th Amendment gives us the constitutional framework to reclaim our right to self-government. Texas has the resources, the population, and the economic strength to chart its own course. The only question is whether we have the will to do so.

Your generation will determine whether Texas remains self-governing or becomes nothing more than an administrative district of a federal superstate. That might sound dramatic, but the Founders would be shocked to see how far we’ve drifted from their vision of state sovereignty.

But there’s hope. Every day, more Texans are waking up to these constitutional principles. They’re asking the right questions: Why are we letting unelected bureaucrats in Washington make decisions that affect our daily lives? Why are we sending $103 billion more to Washington than we get back? Why are we allowing federal regulations to strangle our economic opportunities?

You’re already ahead of the curve. By studying and writing about our Constitution, you’ve shown that you understand something crucial – that our system of government only works when citizens understand and defend their rights. As Thomas Jefferson said, ‘If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.’

You’re sitting here today because you took the time to think deeply about our Constitution. That puts you ahead of most adults I know. Keep asking these questions. Keep thinking critically about the relationship between citizens and their government. Keep defending the principles that make Texas unique.

Remember this: The Constitution doesn’t give us our rights – it protects the rights we already have. And one of those fundamental rights is the right of Texans to govern Texas.

Article 1 Section 1 of the Texas Constitution ends with these words: ‘and the preservation of the right of local self-government, unimpaired to all the States.’ That’s not just a statement – it’s a challenge to each generation of Texans to preserve and protect our right of self-government.

Your generation will write the next chapter in Texas’s story. Make it one worthy of our history and our principles.

Thank you, and God bless Texas.