what does the ninth amendment mean?

Question

[The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.]

I am helping my daughter on a history project and would like to understand the ninth amendment in simple english. I would appreciate anyones help and thoughts.

Answer 1

The ninth amendment means the same thing as the last four words of the tenth amendment.

The federal government was designed to have only certain, limited powers -- as opposed to being all-powerful. The ninth and tenth amendments were added to the Bill of Rights to help make sure that the federal government would not try to exercise any powers which were not delegated. When the ninth amendment refers to rights "retained by the people," the word "retained" can best be explained by saying "all is retained which has not been surrendered."

The Constitution empowers Congress to pass laws regulating interstate commerce. Therefore selling a product to someone in another state cannot be thought of as a "right" retained by the people. The people, in the Constitution, empowers Congress to regulate and whatever CAN be regulated can NOT be a "right" retained by the people.

But Congress has passed a law banning abortion under a certain circumstance (commonly called "partial-birth abortion"). Does that legislation have anything to do with interstate commerce? Does that legislation have anything to do with any other of Congress' enumerated powers? If not, then having an abortion (by that technique or any other) IS a "right retained by the people."

The crucial thing to remember, though, is that the ninth does not control the states. It is only a rule that binds the federal government.

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Answer 2

I'm no Constitutional scholar, but I've read much on it, and I'll take a stab at an answer.

Unlike the Constitution, which enumerated certain, specified powers for the Federal government, and then indicated that only those powers named were the Federal government's [10th Amendment], the rights of the people have no such constraints.

The enumeration of individual rights in the first 8 Amendments does not mean they do not possess other rights not listed in the Bill of rights. This was added because of widespread concern that the people would not have other rights if they were not listed; i.e. that we had no other rights beyond what was listed.

But because there are too many rights to really list, this catchall Amendment was required to ease peoples' concerns so the Constitution could be ratified.

I don't know if this helps, but it's a layman's view.

Answer 3

For NSL I'm guessing? Well the 9th talks about rights of the people that aren't necessarily written in the constitution. It prevents ridiculous infringements on rights that aren't written out. U.S. Supreme Court explained this, in U.S. Public Workers v. Mitchell 330 U.S. 75 (1947): "If granted power is found, necessarily the objection of invasion of those rights, reserved by the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, must fail."

Answer 4

It basically means that there are other rights of the people, beyond what is listed in the Constitution and the Amendments. There had been some arguments that it was impossible to list every single right that people have, and this served as a catch all to rights that may not be implicity listed.

I think of it as the CYA Amendment...

Answer 5

It means that the people are the source of power for the government, and just because a specific right is not enumerated in the Bill of Rights, does not mean that other unlisted inherent rights of the people are limited or don't exist.

Answer 6

~ There is NO way they could have listed ALL the rights that the citizens had... if they missed one, it would have been a loophole to cause other things to hapen... take rights away, etc.