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NINTH AMENDMENT

UNENUMERATED RIGHTS

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1THE FEDERALIST No. 84 (Modern Library ed. 1937). 2 1 ANNALS OF CONGRESS 439 (1789). Earlier, Madison had written to Jefferson:

‘‘My own opinion has always been in favor of a bill of rights; provided it be so

framed as not to imply powers not meant to be included in the enumeration. . . .

I have not viewed it in an important light—1. because I conceive that in a certain

degree . . . the rights in question are reserved by the manner in which the federal

powers are granted. 2. because there is great reason to fear that a positive declaration of some of the most essential rights could not be obtained in the requisite latitude. I am sure that the rights of conscience in particular, if submitted to public

definition would be narrowed much more than they are likely ever to be by an assumed power.’’ 5 WRITINGS OF JAMES MADISON, 271–72 (G. Hunt ed. 1904). See also

3 J. STORY, COMMENTARIES ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 1898

(1833).

UNENUMERATED RIGHTS

NINTH AMENDMENT

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights,

shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by

the people.

RIGHTS RETAINED BY THE PEOPLE

Aside from contending that a bill of rights was unnecessary,

the Federalists responded to those opposing ratification of the Constitution because of the lack of a declaration of fundamental rights

by arguing that inasmuch as it would be impossible to list all

rights it would be dangerous to list some because there would be

those who would seize on the absence of the omitted rights to assert that government was unrestrained as to those. 1 Madison

adverted to this argument in presenting his proposed amendments

to the House of Representatives. ‘‘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. I have attempted it, as gentlemen may see by turning to the last clause of

the fourth resolution.’’ 2 It is clear from its text and from Madison’s

statement that the Amendment states but a rule of construction,

making clear that a Bill of Rights might not by implication be

taken to increase the powers of the national government in areas
1504 AMENDMENT 9—UNENUMERATED RIGHTS

3To some extent, the Ninth and Tenth Amendments overlap with respect to the

question of unenumerated powers, one of the two concerns expressed by Madison,

more clearly in his letter to Jefferson but also present in his introductory speech.

Supra, n.2 and accompanying text. 4 In United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U.S. 75, 94–95 (1947), upholding the

Hatch Act, the Court said: ‘‘We accept appellant’s contention that the nature of political rights reserved to the people by the Ninth and Tenth Amendments [is] involved. The right claimed as inviolate may be stated as the right of a citizen to act

as a party official or worker to further his own political views. Thus we have a

measure of interference by the Hatch Act and the Rules with what otherwise would

be the freedom of the civil servant under the First, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments.’’

See Ashwander v. TVA, 297 U.S. 288, 300–11 (1936), and Tennessee Electric Power

Co. v. TVA, 306 U.S. 118, 143–44 (1939). See also Justice Chase’s opinion in Calder

v. Bull, 3 U.S. (3 Dall.) 386, 388 (1798), and Justice Miller for the Court in Loan

Ass’n v. Topeka, 87 U.S. (20 Wall.) 655, 662–63 (1875). 5 381 U.S. 479 (1965).

6 Id. at 484. The opinion was joined by Chief Justice Warren and by Justices

Clark, Goldberg, and Brennan.

not enumerated, and that it does not contain within itself any

guarantee of a right or a proscription of an infringement. 3 Recently, however, the Amendment has been construed to be positive

affirmation of the existence of rights which are not enumerated but

which are nonetheless protected by other provisions.

The Ninth Amendment had been mentioned infrequently in decisions of the Supreme Court 4 until it became the subject of some

exegesis by several of the Justices in Griswold v. Connecticut. 5

There a statute prohibiting use of contraceptives was voided as an

infringement of the right of marital privacy. Justice Douglas, writing the opinion of the Court, asserted that the ‘‘specific guarantees

in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from

those guarantees that help give them life and substance.’’ 6 Thus,

while privacy is nowhere mentioned, it is one of the values served

and protected by the First Amendment, through its protection of

associational rights, and by the Third, the Fourth, and the Fifth

Amendments as well. The Justice recurred to the text of the Ninth

Amendment, apparently to support the thought that these penumbral rights are protected by one Amendment or a complex of

Amendments despite the absence of a specific reference. Justice

Goldberg, concurring, devoted several pages to the Amendment.

‘‘The language and history of the Ninth Amendment reveal

that the Framers of the Constitution believed that there are additional fundamental rights, protected from governmental infringement, which exist alongside those fundamental rights specifically

mentioned in the first eight constitutional amendments. . . . To

hold that a right so basic and fundamental and so deep-rooted 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
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7 Id. at 488, 491, 492. Chief Justice Warren and Justice Brennan joined this

opinion. Justices Harlan and White concurred id. at 499, 502, without alluding to

the Ninth Amendment, but instead basing their conclusions on substantive due

process, finding that the state statute ‘‘violates basic values implicit in the concept

of ordered liberty,’’ (citing Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, 325 (1937)). Id. at

500. It would appear that the source of the fundamental rights to which Justices

Douglas and Goldberg referred must be found in a concept of substantive due process, despite the former’s express rejection of this ground. Id. at 481–82. Justices

Black and Stewart dissented. Justice Black viewed the Ninth Amendment ground

as essentially a variation of the due process argument under which Justices claimed

the right to void legislation as irrational, unreasonable, or offensive, without finding

any violation of an express constitutional provision.

8 Notice the recurrence to the Ninth Amendment as a ‘‘constitutional ‘saving

clause’’’ in Chief Justice Burger’s plurality opinion in Richmond Newspapers v. Virginia, 448 U.S. 555, 579–80 & n.15 (1980). Scholarly efforts to establish the clause

as a substantive protection of rights include J. ELY, DEMOCRACY AND DISTRUST—

A THEORY OF JUDICIAL REVIEW (Cambridge: 1980), 34–41; and C. BLACK, DECISION

ACCORDING TO LAW (New York: 1981), critically reviewed in W. Van Alstyne,

Slouching Toward Bethlehem with the Ninth Amendment, 91 YALE L. J. 207 (1981).

For a collection of articles on the Ninth Amendment, see THE RIGHTS RETAINED BY

THE PEOPLE: THE HISTORY AND MEANING OF THE NINTH AMENDMENT (Randy E.

Barnett, ed., 1989).

Amendment and to give it no effect whatsoever. Moreover, a judicial construction that this fundamental right is not protected by the

Constitution because it is not mentioned in explicit terms by one

of the first eight amendments or elsewhere in the Constitution

would violate the Ninth Amendment. . . . Nor do I mean to state

that the Ninth Amendment constitutes an independent source of

right protected from infringement by either the States or the Federal Government. 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.’’ 7 While, therefore, neither opinion sought to make of the

Ninth Amendment a substantive source of constitutional guarantees, both did read it as indicating a function of the courts to interpose a veto with regard to legislative and executive efforts to

abridge other fundamental rights. In this case, both opinions

seemed to concur that the fundamental right claimed and upheld

was derivative of several express rights and in this case, really, the

Ninth Amendment added almost nothing to the argument. But if

there is a claim of a fundamental right which cannot reasonably be

derived from one of the provisions of the Bill of Rights, even with

the Ninth Amendment, how is the Court to determine, first, that

it is fundamental, and second, that it is protected from abridgment? 8