U.S. Constitution · Amendment IX · ratified 1791-12-15

Rights Retained by the People

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Amendment IX provides that listing certain rights in the Constitution does not deny or disparage other rights retained by the people.

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Cited in 146 grades this month.

385 public items cite this provision · 146 in October 2026 (last month: 15)

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Citations per week, last 12 weeks

The text

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

National Archives transcription (public domain; original spelling and capitalization). archives.gov

SI explainer

What it means

Amendment IX says that listing some rights in the Constitution does not mean the people have given up other rights. The official summary states: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. In other words, the Bill of Rights and later amendments give examples of protected liberty, not a complete list. Today it works mainly as an instruction about how to read the Constitution. It does not by itself name which other rights are protected, and it does not remove the power of federal, state, and local governments to pass laws. Courts have discussed it when deciding whether an unlisted interest, such as privacy in personal decisions, receives constitutional protection, but they usually connect that protection to other provisions as well. A later amendment can also change the picture by adding an express right or by altering government power.

Original meaning

The generation that wrote and ratified the Constitution disagreed about whether to list rights at all. James Wilson argued in his State House Yard Speech that federal power came only from positive grant, so that everything which is not given is reserved. Hamilton wrote in The Federalist No. 84 that bills of rights would contain various exceptions to powers not granted and would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. Roger Sherman took a similar view at the Convention, saying that the state declarations of rights were not repealed by the Constitution and remained sufficient. Others feared that silence left liberty insecure. Brutus wrote in Brutus No. 2 that the principles of the social compact ought to have been clearly stated with a full declaration of rights, but on this subject there is almost an entire silence, and called the missing grand security to the rights of the people astonishing. Jefferson told Madison in 1787 that omission of a bill of rights was his chief objection, listing freedom of religion, freedom of the press, habeas corpus, and jury trial among the needed protections. Mason moved late in the Convention for a bill of rights to give great quiet to the people, but the motion failed. Amendment IX answered Hamiltons danger argument by stating that listing certain rights must not be read to deny or disparage others kept by the people, while leaving the content of those other rights to be settled by the scheme of enumerated powers, state constitutions, and later law.
  • “They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?” Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist No. 84 (1788-05-28)
  • “The principles, therefore, upon which the social compact is founded, ought to have been clearly and precisely stated, and the most express and full declaration of rights to have been made--But on this subject there is almost an entire silence.” Brutus (attributed to Robert Yates), Brutus, No. 2 (1787-11-01)
  • “It is therefore the more astonishing, that this grand security, to the rights of the people, is not to be found in this constitution.” Brutus (attributed to Robert Yates), Brutus, No. 2 (1787-11-01)
  • “everything which is not given is reserved.” James Wilson, James Wilson, State House Yard Speech, October 6, 1787 (1787-10-06)
  • “First the omission of a bill of rights providing clearly and without the aid of sophisms for freedom of religion, freedom of the press, protection against standing armies, restriction against monopolies, the eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury in all matters of fact triable by the laws of the land and not by the law of Nations.” Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, December 20, 1787 (1787-12-20)
  • “He wished the plan had been prefaced with a Bill of Rights, & would second a Motion if made for the purpose. It would give great quiet to the people; and with the aid of the State declarations, a bill might be prepared in a few hours.” James Madison, Madison's Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention, September 12, 1787 (1787-09-12)

How the Supreme Court has read it

  1. Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965)

    In Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965, the Court struck down a Connecticut law forbidding the use of contraceptives by married couples as violating a right of marital privacy. Justice Douglas for the majority located that privacy right in the protections surrounding several Bill of Rights guarantees, while Justice Goldberg in concurrence relied on Amendment IX as showing that other rights are retained by the people, Justice Harlan in concurrence relied on due process and tradition, and dissenting justices found no such right in the text.

Two schools of interpretation

Originalist / textualist reading

Originalists and textualists read Amendment IX as a rule of construction rather than as a grant of power to judges to define new rights. On this reading, the text says that the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people, which means a listed right cannot be treated as proof that no similar or related right exists. The retained rights must then be found in sources the founding generation would have recognized, such as powers never delegated, rights protected by state law and long custom, or rights later specified by amendment, and not in judicial creation of open-ended guarantees.

Living-constitutionalist reading

Living-constitutionalists and pragmatists read Amendment IX as confirmation that liberty in a changing society is not frozen by an eighteenth-century list, and that judges may recognize unenumerated rights as the meaning of retained rights develops through experience, precedent, and evolving social understanding. On this view, the open language directs each generation to protect fundamental aspects of personal life and self-direction, with courts working out the scope case by case while respecting democratic lawmaking and the rest of the constitutional structure.

Open questions

Whether Amendment IX by itself creates judicially enforceable rights or mainly states a rule for reading the Constitution; which unenumerated rights count as retained by the people and what test identifies them; how Amendment IX relates to other protections of unenumerated rights; and what limits courts and legislatures observe when applying it.

SI-generated explainer · passed automated checks (Constitution citation, every quotation verified word for word against its public-domain source, every case from a verified case record, independent SI critic) · not individually reviewed by a person · published 2026-10-18 · methodology · Report an error: hello@valuesforamerica.com

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Cite this page

Values for America Constitution Explorer, https://www.valuesforamerica.com/constitution (text: National Archives transcription, public domain), Amendment IX, https://www.valuesforamerica.com/constitution/amendment-9

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