About the Ninth Amendment

The idea of a Bill of Rights worried some of the founders greatly. They feared that by listing rights not to be infringed by the government, rights that were not listed could be subject to government interference because such interference was not specifically prohibited. The Ninth Amendment was written in an attempt to preclude such abuse.

Originally, the Ninth Amendment
was a negative statement. In other words, it prevented the Bill of Rights from increasing government powers by limiting those powers solely to what was listed and thus ignoring everything else. In more recent years, however, the amendment has been considered in some court cases to be positive, that it confirmed the existence of rights not otherwise listed but which are still protected. A right to privacy, for example, while not otherwise listed (although strongly implied in the First, Third, and Fourth Amendments) has enjoyed such decisions under the protections of the Ninth Amendment as Griswold v. Connecticut.

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