Why 9th amendment important

In his article, Barnett reviews the historical evidence for the meaning of the Ninth Amendment and concludes that the amendment uniquely provides explicit guidance on how to interpret the Constitution.

The inclusion of an amendment dictating constitutional interpretation is a result of serious worries among the founding generation that a Bill of Rights would actually lead to less liberty, not more. Because it would be impossible to list all the rights that a person holds, it was better not to have a Bill of Rights at all. Instead, he argued, the Constitution protected liberty by carefully limiting the powers held by the government.

The Ninth Amendment was the compromise measure. By clarifying that listing certain rights did not mean that other rights were less protected, the drafters thought that they had covered all of their bases.

The rights listed in the first ten amendments would be protected, but so would those that were not listed. That was important, because the rights listed in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights amendments are hardly comprehensive.

The 9th Amendment was ratified on December 15th, as part of the Bill of Rights which consisted of the first 10 amendments to the US constitution.

Before it was ratified, there was a great discussion in Congress over the suggested text and whether it should be ratified at all. Read our privacy policy for more info. Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription. Leaving a comment is also the best way to reach the management team of ConstitutionUS.

Can County Governments impose regulations that differ between city and rural property in the same county thus restricting simple things like the right to having a garage? Or is this a valid specific reason they are saying this?

So they hope we overlook the 9th Amendment…. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Table of Contents. Please leave this field empty. Leaving a comment is the best way to voice your opinion about the constitution or other matters. Of course, sometimes when language is left out of a document, it is omitted because it is redundant.

If the Ninth Amendment clearly mandated the protection of natural rights, this might provide an explanation for the rejection of other natural rights language.

But at very best, the Ninth Amendment protects natural rights by implication. Those who favor the unenumerated rights view must explain why Congress would pass a measure that, at most, did indirectly precisely what it repeatedly refused to do directly.

So where does this leave us today? The Ninth Amendment tells us that the existence of a written constitution should not be treated as an excuse for ignoring nontextual rights, but it also tells us that the advocates of these rights cannot rest on ancient constitutional text to establish their existence.

Instead, it is for us, the living, to decide whether we would be better off recognizing these rights. The necessity for a contemporary decision on this question may seem daunting, perhaps even frightening, to some, but the responsibility for decisions like this is built into the notion of popular sovereignty. As Thomas Jefferson claimed, prior generations are like a foreign country to us. No American would cede to France or Russia or the United Nations the authority to determine the content of our basic rights.

Neither should we cede that question to people who have been dead for centuries, many of whom believed in slavery and saw no problem with denying the right to vote to women, American Indians, and people who did not own property. It is our responsibility to decide for ourselves what kind of country we want to live in.

No one can or should decide that question for us. As we have seen, there are conflicting claims about the original meaning of the Ninth Amendment. His list was not his own proposal, but rather was his effort to convert the proposals of others to separate articles. Of particular significance is the second:. Of these rights therefore they Shall not be deprived by the Government of the united States. Emphases added.

The significance has nothing to do with the intentions of Roger Sherman—apart from his intention to use the English language in a manner that would be understood by his audience. It simply shows the content these words would have communicated to the general public. Instead, they are identified by name. THAT all men are born equally free and independent, and have certain inherent natural rights, of which they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; among which are, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.

Arguing that the Ninth Amendment was not intended to refer specifically to these natural rights, Professor Seidman places great weight on the fact that Congress declined to adopt similar language. But that decision, made for unknown reasons, does not affect the public meaning of the text that was adopted.

Later, Justice Bushrod Washington would use similar wording to describe the privileges and immunities of citizens. How should these words be implemented?