From: Michael S. Lorrey (mike@datamann.com)
Date: Mon Apr 03 2000 - 15:56:55 MDT
GBurch1@aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 4/2/00 2:16:53 PM Central Daylight Time,
> retroman@turbont.net writes:
>
> > But only in that most courts today seem to have total ignorance or
> > distain for the 9th Amendment, and are drifting away from the founders
> > concepts of Natural Law. Under the 9th, any rights not enumerated in the
> > Constitution are retained by the people, as individuals, so it follows
> > that since privacy is not explicitly mentioned, it is a 9th Amendment
> > right.
>
> I don't read the IXth ammendment this way. The text says:
>
> The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights,
> shall not be construed to deny or disparage others
> retained by the people.
>
> I'm no constitutional law scholar, but this just seems to say "The fact that
> a subject is addressed in the Constitution doesn't mean that it excludes
> other rights the people may have," or alternatively, "the Constitution is not
> an exhaustive enumeration of rights."
The way I read it is that any rights addressed by name in the Constitution do not
exceed or override any rights the people may posess which are not named in the
Constitution. The 9th amendment deals with rights, while the Xth deals with
POWERS, not rights.
> Are you thinking of the Xth ammendment?
>
> The powers not delegated to the United States
> by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states,
> are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
>
> Which I have always taken to simply mean that the Founders intended that the
> federal government be a LIMITED government, with only explicitly enumerated
> powers. (The Xth ammendment has always seemed a little foggy in it's last
> clause -- probably intentionally so -- as to the division of power between
> people and states . . .)
Because it deals with powers, not rights, it deals with basically stating that
governmental powers outside of those dealt with in the constitution, are to be
hashed out by the citizens of the respective states as to whether those
governmental powers are to be managed at the state or local level, as they choose
to define it in their state constitutions and laws.
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