Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution
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Amendment IX (the Ninth Amendment) of the United States Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights, states:
- The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
In his introduction before the House of Representatives of the original twelve Amendments proposed to the states, ten of which would be ratified and become known as the Bill of Rights, James Madison addressed the 9th and 10th Amendments as follows:
- It has been objected also against a bill of rights, that, by enumerating particular exceptions to the grant of power, it would disparage those rights which were not placed in that enumeration; and it might follow by implication, that those rights which were not singled out, were intended to be assigned into the hands of the General Government, and were consequently insecure. This is one of the most plausible arguments I have ever heard against the admission of a bill of rights into this system; but, I conceive, that it may be guarded against. I have attempted it, as gentlemen may see by turning to the last clause of the fourth resolution.
Madison was speaking to the fears that the enumeration of some specific limitations on the powers of the Federal Government would be interpreted to mean that the government's powers would extend beyond the powers granted Congress in Article One, Section 8 of the new Constitution. Indeed, this was the Federalists' argument against the inclusion of a Bill of Rights during the ratification of the Constitution. After all, the government was already powerless to establish a national religion before the Bill of Rights was passed because the power was simply not granted in the first place. In effect, the 9th Amendment was put in place as a notice to the Congress that they were still a body constricted by a set of enumerated powers.
In recent times it has been argued that the Ninth Amendment, particularly when read in conjunction with the Tenth Amendment, emphasizes that the Bill of Rights is not a grant of rights from the government to the people, but rather a reminder that it merely enumerates some of the powers most important to the people that are not granted to the government. The Ninth Amendment, it is argued, recognizes that such natural rights are retained by the people and cannot be abridged by the government.
Since footnote four, the proper application of the Ninth Amendment has been a contentious issue. Robert Bork famously likened it to an inkblot, saying judges were not permitted to make up what was under the inkblot. However, Randy Barnett has argued that the Ninth Amendment requires what he calls a presumption of liberty.
External links
- Steven Atherton on the Ninth Amendment (http://web.archive.org/web/20040212084043/http://awlawfirm.com/Articles/9thAmendment.htm)
- Text of Madison's introduction of the Bill of Rights (http://www.usconstitution.net/madisonbor.html#Sec10)