Ninth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
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The Ninth Amendment (Amendment IX) to the U.S. Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. It says the explicit protection of certain rights in the Constitution does not indicate that other unmentioned rights do not exist.[1][2]
Federalists who opposed the Bill of Rights argued that listing some rights and not others could create the idea that the government can violate rights not explicitly mentioned in the document. James Madison introduced Amendment IX to mitigate Federalist concerns.[1][2]
Background
The Bill of Rights resulted from compromises between federalist and anti-federalist framers of the Constitution of the United States.
The Constitutional Convention of 1787 was convened to solve the problems related to the weak national government under the Articles of Confederation. Prominent federalists like James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay advocated for a completely new government under the United States Constitution. Anti-federalists like Patrick Henry, Melancton Smith, and George Clinton argued that the national government proposed under the Constitution would be too powerful and would infringe on individual liberties. They thought the Articles of Confederation needed amended, not replaced.[3][4]
Although the federalists succeeded in passing the Constitution, anti-federalists won compromises and successfully advocated for the addition of the Bill of Rights, which they thought would protect individual freedoms and rights from national power. Federalists objected to the addition of the Bill of Rights because they believed it was unnecessary given the enumerated powers of the federal government. Federalists thought the Bill of Rights would undermine the enumerated limits of the government and that the identification of specific rights could give the national government the grounds to destroy rights that were not specifically identified.[3][4]
The Ninth Amendment was created to mitigate federalist concerns, explicitly stating, "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."[5]
See also
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Cornell Law School, "Ninth Amendment," accessed July 28, 2021
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Cornell Law School, "UNENUMERATED RIGHTS NINTH AMENDMENT," accessed July 28, 2021
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedanti - ↑ 4.0 4.1 Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedfedpapers - ↑ Constitution Annotated, "Amdt9.1 Ninth Amendment: Historical Background," accessed February 22, 2022
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