Commentary President Biden, the Constitution you swore on the Bible to “preserve, protect, and defend” gives you very limited authority. You are not a dictator. That Constitution was ratified only because it sharply restricted federal authority. Its promoters reassured the public again and again that the Constitution enumerated (listed) federal powers—and that if a power is not on the list, it isn’t there. The Constitution’s supporters even agreed to amendments reinforcing this point. The Ninth Amendment (whose language is widely misunderstood today) says that the Constitution’s specific limits on federal authority (such the First Amendment), merely supplement the document’s other limits (such as the limits inherent in enumerated powers). The Tenth Amendment says that federal functionaries like yourself have only those powers the Constitution enumerates. The rest are divided between the states and the people, with the specific lines of division varying in each state under its state constitution. Now, …