Fade Resistance Performance
In the Ratification process of the Constitution, our Ninth and Tenth Amendments were adopted to make the principle of the Constitution as clear as possible. Hamilton argued against adding a Bill of Rights, on grounds that it would be redundant and confusing. He thought it would seem to imply that the federal government had more powers than it had been given.
Hamilton asked, "Why say that the freedom of the press shall not be infringed, when the federal Government would have no power by which it could be infringed?" Any fair minded individual can even make the case that he was exactly right. He understood, at any rate, that our freedom is safer if we think of the Constitution as a list of powers rather than as a list of rights. Be that as it may, the Bill of Rights was adopted, but it was designed to meet his objection...
The Ninth Amendment says: "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." And the Tenth Amendment: "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."
Now what these two provisions mean is pretty simple. The Ninth means that the list of the people's rights in the Constitution is not meant to be complete - that they still have many other rights, like the right to travel or to marry, which may deserve just as much respect as the right not to have soldiers quartered in one's home in peacetime. The Tenth, on the other hand, means that the list of powers "delegated" to the federal government is complete - and that any other powers the government assumed would be considered "usurped".
The Founders believed that our rights come from God, and their intent was for the Government's powers to come from us. So by design, the Constitution can't list all of our rights - in a Divine setting it is not a theocratic document like the Bible or the Torah or Koran giving instruction to the masses. The Constitution, however, can and does list all the federal Government's powers because in a Freedom setting it was so engineered that the People are the Providential Power.
You can think of the Constitution as a sort of antitrust act for government, with the Ninth and Tenth Amendments at its core. It's remarkable that the same liberals who think business monopolies are sinister also believe that monopolies of political power are good, even progressive. Sadly, they are wrong on both counts, but when they can't pass their programs because of the constitutional safeguards, they complain about "gridlock" - a cliché that shows they miss the whole point of the enumeration and separation of powers.
Many modern day politicians and pundits are so far disconnected from the reality, intent and meanings of the Constitution, they would likely not be able have a cogent conversation about political principles with any of the Founding Fathers. If you are able to imagine the likes of Dan Rostenkowski, Al Gore, or Tom Brokaw having a such a conversation, please forward the recipe of Meds and the type of alcohol you are currently ingesting along with your recommendations on dosage.
The average American, whether he or she has been exposed to just high-school civics or has earned a degree in political science, is apt to assume that the Constitution somehow empowers the government to do nearly anything, while implicitly limiting our rights by listing them. It's as if the Bill of Rights had said that the enumeration of the federal Government's powers in the Constitution is not meant to deny or disparage any other powers it may choose to claim, while the rights not given to the people in the Constitution are reserved to the federal Government to give or withhold, and the States may be progressively stripped of their original powers.
What it essentially comes down to, is that we don't really have an operative Constitution anymore. The federal government defines its own powers day by day. It's limited not by the list of its powers in the Constitution, but by whatever it can get away with politically. Just as the president can now send troops abroad to fight without a declaration of war, Congress can pass a national health care program without a constitutional delegation of power. The only remaining restraint is political opposition.
Wait a second - you can't be serious...
If you think all this is a bit overstated, lets take a look at a landmark 1965 case called Griswold v. Connecticut, where the Court struck down a law forbidding the sale of contraceptives on grounds that it violated a right of "privacy". Justice Hugo Black dissented in the Griswold case with the following: "I like my privacy as well as the next, but I am nevertheless compelled to admit that government has a right to invade it unless prohibited by some specific constitutional provision."
What a hopelessly muddled, and really sinister, misconception of the relation between the individual and the state. Government has a right to invade our privacy, unless prohibited by the Constitution?? You don't have to share the Court's twisted view of the right of privacy in order to be shocked that one of its members takes this view of the "right" of Government to invade our privacy.
From Wacky to Quacky...