They ceded a specific and enumerated list of powers, reserving all others to the states. Here is a small sample that shows some thoughts of the primary drafter

They ceded a specific and enumerated list of powers, reserving all others to the states. Here is a small sample that shows some thoughts of the primary drafter of the Constitution(reference is Federalist Papers 45): Within every district to which a federal collector would be allotted, there would not be less than thirty or forty, or even more, officers of different descriptions, and many of them persons of character and weight, whose influence would lie on the side of the State. 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. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. I chose taxation as a topic only because Madison gave concrete numbers. Here: * Using the number of tax collectors as a rough metric, the federal government was planned to be about 30-40 times smaller than all individual states combined. I don't know the 2016 figures. * He affirms that the federal government "[...]will be exercised principally on external objects", which would seem to oppose redrawing state lines for the convenience of local matters(such as city boundaries). Though, if all states in question consented to having their borders redrawn, it does seem like the federal government should still at least approve. So I'm not sure I buy this argument that the Federal government was designed at the outset to be this all-consuming entity that can stomp all over states however it pleases, though there certainly has been a recent trend that way. Hopefully the upcoming Supreme Court appointments can reverse this trend. Given the topic, this sentence is also worth reading: If the new Constitution be examined with accuracy and candor, it will be found that the change which it proposes consists much less in the addition of NEW POWERS to the Union, than in the invigoration of its ORIGINAL POWERS.