Examining the Ninth and Tenth Amendments

 Our Bill of Rights

Examining the Ninth and Tenth Amendments

On September 17, 1787, the day our Constitution was delivered to the States for ratification, one of theauthors, George Mason, refused to sign it, saying that it needed a Bill of Rights. His opinion wasrepeated during many of the ratification debates in the states, including in Madison’s home state ofVirginia, prompting Madison to promise that he would draft amendments to be added when Congress metfor the first time.

The problem was that although the Constitution did not grant the government unwanted powers, it did notprevent the government from eventually acquiring them. In the United States’ first session of Congress,Representative James Madison wrote 12 proposals that contained few rights but several importantrestrictions on government power. Ten were properly ratified by the States over the next two years,becoming what is known as our Bill of Rights.

The Ninth and Tenth Amendments worked together to reinforce the limited powers of our constitutionalgovernment.

This amendment set a good limitation on the federal government by prohibiting it from being the deciding power of rights not enumerated in the original Constitution. It “suggested that various rights of the people were not to be denied or disparaged by the existence of the Bill of Rights, but this commandobviously presupposed a baseline, namely, what would the status of a given right have been in theabsence of the Bill of Rights?”1

Confirming the design of a limited Federal Government, it orders that if something is not in the Constitution, it belongs to the States or the People. This is why Roe v. Wade, the abortion case, was sentback to the States for reconsideration.

Steven Maikoski constitutionist@outlook.com

1 Amar, “America’s Constitution” p.328