Educate. Empower. Choose.
If you came here because you want your kids to know what Amendment IX actually says — that the enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people — you are in the right place. The National American Citizen Association educates the next generation about the threat to Western civilization and the importance of Israel, and about the Constitution free people still hold in their hands. Free people cannot choose what they have not been taught to read. Here is the Ninth Amendment on the paper, why Hamilton feared that listing rights could be twisted into a claim that everything unlisted was surrendered, how Madison answered that fear on June 8, 1789, what Virginia’s Declaration already taught about inherent rights, how Griswold’s majority spoke of penumbras while Justice Goldberg’s concurrence put the Ninth’s retained-rights rule on the table, and how Washington v. Glucksberg later measured unenumerated liberty claims under the Fourteenth Amendments Due Process Clause by history and tradition — documents you can open yourself.
This place is civic education. Companion essays already on the record include Why Israel Matters, What We Inherited, Branches of Government, and American History. The Amendment I set drafted for this series covers religion, press and propaganda literacy, speech, and assembly and petition. The Second through Seventh Amendment drafts opened arms, searches, due process and takings, criminal-trial rights, and the civil jury. The Eighth Amendment draft opened excessive bail, excessive fines, and cruel and unusual punishments (Excessive Bail Shall Not Be Required). This page is Amendment IX next: the rule of construction free people need to read before a feed collapses them into a slogan about “every preference is already a constitutional right” or a slogan about “only the first eight Amendments count, and nothing else was retained.” It does not re-argue Stack, Timbs, Trop, Gregg, Duncan, Gideon, or Heller. It puts the Ninth Amendment where a cold reader can find it.
What Amendment IX says
Start with the text. Amendment IX, as enrolled in the National Archives Bill of Rights transcript (and as published in the Avalon Project’s Bill of Rights transcription):
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Sources: National Archives, Bill of Rights transcript; Yale Avalon, Bill of Rights
Read it as a rule of construction, not as a blank voucher for every policy preference and not as permission to erase the enumerated Amendments that come before it. First: the Constitution does enumerate certain rights. Second: that list shall not be construed to deny or disparage other rights. Third: those other rights are retained by the people. The Avalon transcription even labels Amendment IX a “Rule of construction of Constitution. That label matches the grammar: this is how free people are told to read the list, not a license to invent a new list every election cycle, and not a claim that the enumerated Amendments were optional.
Three phrases do real work. Enumeration … of certain rights admits that the Bill of Rights is a list — and that listing is incomplete by design. Shall not be construed to deny or disparage is a command about interpretation: do not treat silence as surrender. Others retained by the people points to rights free people kept, not rights a court invents from a slogan, and not powers never granted. Later doctrine still argues about which unenumerated liberties, if any, the Fourteenth Amendments Due Process Clause protects against the States. The floor for Amendment IX itself is still the text: listing some rights does not mean free people surrendered every other right they retained. A cold reader who can quote Amendment IX before arguing about the feed around it already has an advantage.
What Virginia taught about rights free people do not surrender
Before the federal Bill of Rights, Virginias Declaration of Rights (June 12, 1776) named an inheritance free people feared losing when they entered into society. Article I:
That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.
Source: Yale Avalon, Virginia Declaration of Rights
Read that beside Amendment IX. Virginia already insisted that entering into a state of society does not mean free people may, by compact, deprive or divest their posterity of certain inherent rights. The federal Ninth answers a narrower problem: once a Constitution does enumerate certain rights, that enumeration shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. Free people who forget why “retained” and “inherent were written will treat every unlisted claim as already constitutional — or treat every right outside the first eight Amendments as already erased. The documents teach a harder lesson: listing rights on paper still refuses the implication that silence equals surrender.
That inheritance is how free people keep hard arguments in the open — including about the threat to Western civilization and the importance of Israel. Source the papers. Let the reader decide. People are not an ideology. A Republic that can still name a regime without collapsing a people into a creed also needs citizens who can read Amendment IX without outsourcing the verdict to a chant.
Hamilton’s fear: why listing rights could be dangerous
During ratification, Federalists and Anti-Federalists argued past each other about whether listing rights would help or hurt. In Federalist No. 84, Alexander Hamilton stated the enumeration-danger argument free people still need to hear in his own words, because Amendment IX was written in the shadow of that fear:
I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretense for claiming that power.
Earlier in the same paper Hamilton also wrote the related claim about what free people keep when they ordain a Constitution of limited powers:
Here, in strictness, the people surrender nothing; and as they retain every thing they have no need of particular reservations.
Source: Yale Avalon, Federalist No. 84
Read that carefully. Hamilton’s point is structural: a Constitution of enumerated powers already limits what the federal government may do; listing exceptions to powers never granted could give “men disposed to usurp” a colorable pretext to claim that whatever was not listed was fair game — or that listing implied a power to regulate the thing protected. Free people who can quote Federalist No. 84 before arguing about Amendment IX already know why Anti-Federalists demanded a bill of rights and why Federalists feared the list itself. The Ninth Amendment is Madison’s written answer to that fear of disparagement by implication. It tells free people how not to read the list.
Madison’s fix: June 8, 1789
On June 8, 1789, James Madison introduced proposed amendments in the House and faced the enumeration objection head-on. He named the argument, called it plausible, and said he had tried to guard against it:
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 urged against the admission of a bill of rights into this system; but, I conceive, that may be guarded against. I have attempted it, as gentlemen may see by turning to the last clause of the fourth resolution.
The clause Madison pointed to — the ancestor of Amendment IX — said:
The exceptions here or elsewhere in the Constitution, made in favor of particular rights, shall not be so construed as to diminish the just importance of other rights retained by the people, or as to enlarge the powers delegated by the Constitution; but either as actual limitations of such powers, or as inserted merely for greater caution.
Source: Teaching American History, Madison speech introducing amendments (June 8, 1789) (text from the Annals of Congress tradition; Avalon’s “Madison Debates — June 8” page is the 1787 Convention journal for that calendar date, not this House speech)
Two civic notes. First: Madison did not pretend the objection was frivolous. He called it one of the most plausible arguments against admitting a bill of rights then wrote a rule of construction so enumerating particular rights would not be twisted into a claim that every other right was assigned away. Second: his draft also warned against enlarging the powers delegated by the Constitution. The enrolled Ninth keeps the retained-rights half in sharper focus. Free people who can put Hamilton’s fear beside Madison’s fix beside the Archives text already know Amendment IX is a reading rule born in a ratification fight — not a modern slogan about whichever cause a feed favors this week.
What the Court said in Griswold: majority penumbras, Goldberg’s Ninth
In Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965), the Court struck down a Connecticut ban on the use of contraceptives by married persons. Keep two opinions straight: Justice Douglas wrote for the Court; Justice Goldberg (joined by Chief Justice Warren and Justice Brennan) concurred and put Amendment IX at the center of his reasoning. Free people who collapse those into one “privacy Amendment” story lose the paper.
Douglas’s majority described privacy as arising from specific guarantees and the zones around them:
The foregoing cases suggest that specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance. Various guarantees create zones of privacy.
And on the marital relationship at issue:
We deal with a right of privacy older than the Bill of Rights older than our political parties, older than our school system.
The majority opinion also quoted Amendment IX’s text among the guarantees that, in Douglas’s view, create zones of privacy. Source: Griswold v. Connecticut, Cornell LII opinion text
Goldberg’s concurrence went further on the Ninth as a retained-rights rule. He quoted Madison’s June 8 argument, then explained what he did — and did not mean:
Rather, the Ninth Amendment shows a belief of the Constitution's authors that fundamental rights exist that are not expressly enumerated in the first eight amendments and an intent that the list of rights included there not be deemed exhaustive.
And, refusing to treat silence in the first eight Amendments as erasure of marital privacy:
To hold that a right so basic and fundamental and so deeprooted in our society as the right of privacy in marriage may be infringed because that right is not guaranteed in so many words by the first eight amendments to the Constitution is to ignore the Ninth Amendment and to give it no effect whatsoever.
Goldberg also drew a bright line free people should not blur:
Nor do I mean to state that the Ninth Amendment constitutes an independent source of rights protected from infringement by either the States or the Federal Government.
Source: Griswold v. Connecticut, Goldberg, J., concurring, Cornell LII
Two civic notes. First: the majority holding rides on penumbras and zones of privacy drawn from specific guarantees; Goldberg’s concurrence elaborates Amendment IX as evidence that the list in the first eight Amendments is not exhaustive — while denying that the Ninth is itself an independent source of free-standing rights. Second: neither opinion is a blank voucher for every later policy claim labeled “privacy.” Free people who can tell Douglas from Goldberg cannot be bullied by a slogan that pretends Amendment IX already decides every modern dispute — or by a slogan that pretends the Ninth was never meant to stop the disparagement fear Madison named in 1789.
What the Court said in Glucksberg: history, tradition, and Fourteenth Due Process
Amendment IX is a rule about how to construe the Constitution’s enumeration of rights. Many modern fights about unenumerated liberties are litigated under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause as applied to the States. Civic education has to keep those lanes distinct.
In Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702 (1997), the Court held that Washington’s ban on assisted suicide did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. Chief Justice Rehnquist, for the Court, described the method:
Our established method of substantive-due-process analysis has two primary features: First, we have regularly observed that the Due Process Clause specially protects those fundamental rights and liberties which are, objectively, "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition," …
And:
Second, we have required in substantive-due-process cases a "careful description" of the asserted fundamental liberty interest.
On the claim before the Court, the opinion stated:
We hold that it does not.
— that is, that a ban on assisting a suicide does not offend the Fourteenth Amendments Due Process Clause as the respondents argued. And on the asserted liberty interest:
This asserted right has no place in our Nation's traditions, given the country's consistent, almost universal, and continuing rejection of the right, even for terminally ill, mentally competent adults.
Source: Washington v. Glucksberg, Cornell LII opinion text
Two civic notes. First: Glucksberg is a Fourteenth Amendment Due Process case about an asserted unenumerated liberty; it is not a holding that Amendment IX creates, or refuses, a right to assisted suicide. Free people should not paste Ninth Amendment labels onto a Fourteenth Amendment method without reading the caption. Second: Glucksberg asks whether an asserted liberty is deeply rooted and carefully described under Due Process analysis. Amendment IX still says the enumeration of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. Different papers. Different jobs. Source both. Let the reader decide.
Soft note: Dobbs and the history-tradition lane (2022)
In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 597 U.S. 215 (2022), the Court held that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion, overruled Roe and Casey, and returned regulatory authority to the people and their elected representatives. The syllabus states:
Held: The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.
The Court found that the right to abortion is not deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and tradition. The opinion also noted that one of Roe’s possible foundations had been “the Ninth Amendment’s reservation of rights to the people,” among other theories — and it rejected the constitutional-right claim under the analysis it applied.
Source: Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Cornell LII opinion text
One civic note only, document-first, no advocacy either way: Dobbs is primarily a Fourteenth Amendment / history-and-tradition decision. It is not a rewrite of Amendment IX’s text. Source the holding so a cold reader is not left with only a feed.
What Amendment IX protects — and what it does not
Put the papers on one table.
| Paper | Year | What free people should be able to say in one sentence |
|---|---|---|
| Amendment IX | 1791 | The enumeration of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. |
| Virginia Declaration I | 1776 | Free people have certain inherent rights they cannot, by compact, deprive or divest their posterity of. |
| Federalist No. 84 | 1788 | Hamilton warned that bills of rights could be dangerous because enumerating exceptions to powers not granted could furnish a pretext to claim more than were granted. |
| Madison, June 8, 1789 | 1789 | Madison called the disparagement-by-enumeration objection one of the most plausible arguments against a bill of rights, and proposed a clause so exceptions for particular rights would not diminish other rights retained by the people. |
| Griswold (Douglas, majority) | 1965 | Specific guarantees have penumbras forming zones of privacy; the case concerned marital privacy older than the Bill of Rights. |
| Griswold (Goldberg, concurrence) | 1965 | The Ninth shows the list in the first eight Amendments is not exhaustive; Goldberg denied that the Ninth is an independent source of rights. |
| Glucksberg | 1997 | Under Fourteenth Due Process, fundamental liberties must be deeply rooted in history and tradition and carefully described; Washington's assisted-suicide ban was upheld. |
| Dobbs (soft) | 2022 | The Court held the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey overruled; history-and-tradition analysis applied. |
Amendment IX is not the Eighth’s bail, fines, and punishments limits, not the Sixth’s criminal-jury and counsel guarantees, not the Fifth’s Miranda rule, not the Seventh’s civil-jury preservation, and not the Second’s Heller holding. Those belong on the companion pages already drafted for this series. This page’s job is the rule of construction: listing some rights does not mean free people surrendered every other right retained — and the Ninth is not a blank voucher for every preference, nor permission to erase the enumerated Amendments.
None of this makes every unlisted claim a constitutional trump. None of it erases the first eight Amendments, competent legislation within enumerated and reserved powers, or the difference between a Ninth Amendment reading rule and a Fourteenth Amendment Due Process claim measured by history and tradition. The citizen’s first job is still the hardest: open the Amendment, Hamilton, Madison, and the cases before outsourcing the verdict to a feed.
What to do with this
Educate. Read Amendment IX at the National Archives or Yale Avalon. Read Virginia Declaration I on inherent rights. Read Federalist No. 84 on Hamilton’s enumeration-danger warning. Read Madison’s June 8, 1789 speech on disparagement by enumeration and the retained-rights clause he proposed. Read Griswold’s majority on penumbras and Goldberg’s concurrence on the Ninth. Read Glucksberg on history, tradition, and careful description under Fourteenth Due Process. Read the soft Dobbs holding. Original documents, not a feed.
Empower. A citizen who can quote “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people,” and who can state Hamilton’s warning, Madison’s answer, Douglass penumbras holding versus Goldberg’s Ninth concurrence, and Glucksberg’s history-and-tradition method under the Fourteenth Amendment, cannot be bullied by a slogan that erases retained rights or by a slogan that pretends every caption already decides the Constitution. Teach a student to ask: What does the text say? What did Hamilton fear? What did Madison guard against? What did Douglas hold, and what did Goldberg add about the Ninth? What did Glucksberg require under Due Process? Which paper is Amendment IX, and which paper is the Fourteenth? What is the primary text?
Choose. Choose documents before takes. Choose to read Amendment IX as a rule of construction without turning it into a blank voucher or into a claim that only the enumerated Amendments exist. Choose to tell Hamilton’s fear from Madison’s fix. Choose to tell Douglas’s majority from Goldberg’s concurrence. Choose to tell a Ninth Amendment reading rule from a Fourteenth Amendment Due Process claim measured by history and tradition, the way Glucksberg does. Choose to tell a person from an ideology. Choose to keep Western civilization’s habit of arguing from papers — including about Israel and about threats free people must be able to name — so the next generation inherits a Republic that can still read its own Bill of Rights.
Your children will inherit Amendment IX whether or not this generation teaches them. They will inherit the feeds either way. The National American Citizen Association’s work in this lane is to put the Ninth Amendment, Federalist No. 84, Madison’s June 8 answer, and the holdings and concurrences in Griswold, Glucksberg, and the soft Dobbs note in their hands so a chant about “every preference is already a right” or a chant about “nothing was retained” never becomes the only teacher left.
Sources
- Constitution of the United States, Amendment IX (Bill of Rights). U.S. National Archives. https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/bill-of-rights-transcript
- Bill of Rights transcription. Yale Avalon. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/rights1.asp
- Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776), Article I. Yale Avalon. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/virginia.asp
- The Federalist No. 84 (Hamilton). Yale Avalon. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed84.asp
- James Madison, speech introducing amendments, House of Representatives, June 8, 1789. Teaching American History (Annals of Congress tradition). https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/speech-on-amendments-to-the-constitution/
- Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965), opinion of the Court (Douglas, J.) and concurrence (Goldberg, J.), Cornell Legal Information Institute. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/381/479
- Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702 (1997), opinion of the Court (Rehnquist, C.J.), Cornell LII. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/521/702
- Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 597 U.S. 215 (2022), opinion of the Court (Alito, J.), Cornell LII (soft note only). https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/19-1392
- National American Citizen Association companion civic pages: Why Israel Matters, What We Inherited, Branches of Government, American History; Eighth Amendment companion: Excessive Bail Shall Not Be Required.
Civic education and political commentary. Quotations are from the public documents linked above.
