The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
The Ninth Amendment was written to accomplish the following objectives: (1) to prevent the application of the statutory rule of interpretation, inclusio unius est exclusio alterius (the inclusion of one thing necessarily excludes all others); (2) to permit the Federalists to save face by affirming the argument they had made against the necessity of a bill of rights; and (3) to confirm the republican principles, espoused by Federalists and Anti-Federalists alike, that the people retain their communal right of self-governance.
In arguing against the inclusion of a “Bill Of Rights” the Federalists posited; “If we attempt an enumeration, every thing that is not enumerated is presumed to be given. The consequence is, that an imperfect enumeration would throw all implied power into the scale of the government, and the rights of the people would be rendered incomplete.”
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.
–James Madison
Madison was attempting to guard against the well-understood rule of inclusio unius est exclusio alterius, whereby the very listing of certain rights as immune from congressional regulation would necessarily imply a grant of general legislative power in Congress to legislate over all others.
Madison’s proposed amendment, then, was an attempt to avoid the result feared by the Federalists. The State of Virginia stalled the adoption of the Constitution for over two years over the questions that Madison attempted to address with the 9th amendment. Yet withing two years of adoption, the Federal government began overreach which was commented on in 1886 by Lysander Spooner;
“But perhaps the most absolute proof that our national lawmakers and judges are as regardless of all constitutional, as they are of all natural, law, and that their statutes and decisions are as destitute of all constitutional, as they are of all natural, authority, is to be found in the fact that these lawmakers and judges have trampled upon, and utterly ignored, certain amendments to the constitution, which had been adopted, and (constitutionally speaking) become authoritative, as early as 1791; only two years after the government went into operation.
If these amendments had been obeyed, they would have compelled all congresses and courts to understand that, if the government had any constitutional powers at all, they were simply powers to protect men’s natural rights, and not to destroy any of them.
These amendments have actually forbidden any lawmaking whatever in violation of men’s natural rights. And this is equivalent to a prohibition of any lawmaking at all. And if lawmakers and courts had been as desirous of preserving men’s natural rights, as they have been of violating them, they would long ago have found out that, since these amendments, the constitution authorized no lawmaking at all.”
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed on March 14, 2007 that the Ninth Amendment to the United States is now null and void. The judges did not explicitly express those statements in their ruling, but that is the implication. The case involved a woman whose life, according to her doctor, can only be preserved with medical marijuana. The judges ruled that the federal government may nevertheless prosecute her for violating federal laws regarding drugs.
The U.S. Supreme Court had already ruled that medical marijuana users could be convicted for violating federal marijuana laws even if legal by state law. Therefore, the specific issue in this case was whether the U.S. Constitution recognizes a natural right to life as an unenumerated right recognized by the Ninth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That Amendment states, in its entirety, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
The meaning of the Ninth Amendment is that there are rights that people have which are not created by the constitution but precede it, and these rights are recognized by the U.S. Constitution just as much as rights such as free speech that are “enumerated” or explicitly stated. The supreme natural right of a person is the right to live and to protect one’s own life. If this supreme right is “disparaged,” hence ignored or disregarded, or denied, then no other rights have meaning.
The judges ruled that the defendant could be prosecuted by the federal government. They ruled that the right to life is not implicit in the Constitution, which implies that these judges disparage and deny the Ninth Amendment itself. This judgment has killed the Ninth Amendment. That section of the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution is now null and void, no longer recognized by the federal judiciary.
The fundamental moral purpose and authority of government is to protect life and liberty. Government is not morally justified by democracy or a constitution or religious authority but only from enforcing a rule of law that protects human rights. In the United States, the heart and soul of the U.S. Constitution has been the Ninth Amendment, which recognizes all our natural rights, and explicitly prohibits the federal government from denying and disparaging these rights.
Congress is at fault for enacting laws that violate the Ninth Amendment, but the way the U.S. government works is by the judicial branch of government having the last say, overruling laws that violate the Constitution.
Where does that leave American citizens? We no longer have a real rule of law, but a rule of men who can decide what portions of the constitution to live by and which to disparage.
The day that the judges killed the Ninth Amendment they murdered the spirit of the U.S. Constitution, the spirit of liberty and the vision of our Founding Fathers.
On March 14, 2007 the U.S. government lost its remaining moral authority.
This page and its links contain opinion. As with all opinion, it should not be relied upon without independent verification. Think for yourself. Fair Use is relied upon for all content. For educational purposes only. No claims are made to the properties of third parties.
(c) 2018