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Senator
Mary Kiffmeyer
Over the past two months, we have examined our Constitution’s first eight amendments. Each of them uniquely protects our existing fundamental rights, from speech to religion, to the right to own a firearm to the rights afforded to us in our homes and even upon conviction of a crime. But our Founding Fathers were aware that not every fundamental right could be put into a written constitution. This is why the Ninth Amendment was included in the Bill of Rights.
The Ninth Amendment reads:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
At the time of the Constitution’s ratification, there was a fierce debate between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists about the notion of a bill of rights. Anti-Federalists strongly supported including a bill of rights to the Constitution as a way of ensuring that key fundamental rights would be protected against potential abuses of a future federal government. Federalists, on the other hand, opposed enumerating any rights because it could imply that those not listed in a bill of rights were simply nonexistent.
James Madison, the father of our Constitution, initially wanted to place the language from the Ninth Amendment in Article I, the article that includes the Congress’s powers and limitations. But after careful deliberation and committee work, Madison’s idea for protecting unenumerated rights was eventually placed among the first ten amendments that we now know as the Bill of Rights.
While we know much about the history of the Ninth Amendment, its meaning today is subject to many varying interpretations by judges and scholars alike. Some argue that the Ninth Amendment protects “collective rights” of the people.
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