Start with the words. The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. Nearly everyone treats that as a footnote to the Bill of Rights: here are ten, there are more, do not forget it.
Bill Norton says look at the calendar. The Bill of Rights did not exist when the Ninth Amendment was written and sent out to the states. It had not been ratified. So the phrase enumerated in the Constitution cannot be pointing at ten amendments that were not there yet. It is pointing at the Constitution itself.
Which raises the obvious problem. Go through the Constitution and there is no clean list of rights in it. A mention of the jury, a few other things, and that is about it. So where are the rights?
James Madison answered that question in letters with George Washington, and the answer is the hinge of the whole argument. Protecting rights is the same as limiting powers. They are opposite sides of one coin. Every single limit on power written into that document is a right being protected.
Read it that way and the Ninth Amendment stops being a footnote. It becomes a rule about the entire Constitution: do not misconstrue this document, do not reinterpret it, because when you add a power that does not exist or erase one that does, some right that provision was protecting is no longer protected.
Norton also reads the preamble to the Bill of Rights, which almost nobody knows is there, and it says the same thing in the founders' own words: these clauses were added in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers.
Then the part that should bother you. The Supreme Court has almost never used the Ninth Amendment as the reason for a ruling. It got it right the first time, in the mid eighteen hundreds, and has barely touched it since. Scholars now call it the forgotten amendment.
If you want Congress reminded which direction this document points, the Capitol switchboard is 202-224-3121.
Get the full four-lesson training at teapartypatriots.org/1776. Watch the full conversation at jennybethshow.com.
00:00 — Enumerated in the Constitution, Not in the Bill of Rights
00:17 — The Bill of Rights Did Not Exist Yet
00:39 — So Where Are the Rights in the Constitution
00:57 — Madison Writes to Washington
01:11 — Protecting Rights Is the Same as Limiting Powers
01:36 — What the Ninth Amendment Actually Forbids
02:08 — The Preamble to the Bill of Rights Nobody Reads
02:48 — Written to Prevent Misconstruction of Powers
03:18 — Stretch a Power and You Have Taken a Right
03:55 — The Supreme Court Has Almost Never Used It
04:45 — The Forgotten Amendment
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