The Ninth Amendment: Rights Retained by the People

What it plainly means

The fact that the Constitution lists certain rights does not mean the people have only those rights. Other rights, "retained by the people," are not denied or weakened by being left off the list.

History and the Founders' intent

During ratification, Alexander Hamilton argued in The Federalist No. 84 that a bill of rights was unnecessary and could be dangerous: the federal government had only the powers granted to it, so "why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?" A list of protected rights, he warned, might suggest the government had power over everything not listed.

Madison answered the concern directly. Introducing his proposed amendments in the House on June 8, 1789, he acknowledged the objection that enumerating rights might disparage those not enumerated, and offered the clause that became the Ninth Amendment as the remedy. Read with the Tenth Amendment, it restates the founding design: the people hold all their natural rights; the federal government holds only the powers they delegated.

Key Supreme Court cases

• Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965): Justice Goldberg's concurrence relied on the Ninth Amendment in striking down a ban on contraceptives. Justice Black's dissent warned that this would let judges invent rights according to their own views.
• Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, 597 U.S. 215 (2022): returned abortion policy to the people and their elected representatives, holding that rights not named in the Constitution must be "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition."

Originalists generally read the Ninth Amendment as a rule of construction that forbids using the list of rights to expand federal power, not as a license for judges to announce new rights.

What it means for you today

Your liberties are not limited to the ones written down. The Constitution does not grant rights; it secures rights the people already have, and it gives the federal government only limited powers. Colorado repeats the Ninth Amendment almost word for word in Article II, Section 28.