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Abstract
To better understand the relationship between power and liberty, this study draws on principles of republican political thought, a combination of primary documents and historical analysis, as well as an assemblage of landmark cases and concepts in American constitutional law to craft a republican argument for reading the Ninth and Tenth Amendments as one. The interplay between these two capstone Amendments to the Bill of Rights is deeply rooted in the framers perception of the inextricable relationship between rights and powers. Indeed, they largely thought of rights and powers as the obverse of each otherto put it differently, as opposite sides of the same coin. Moreover, when taken together, these two Amendments represent a microcosm of the often-intersecting theme of structure, power and liberty that permeates the Constitutions text, as well as the political philosophy of the American founding generation.