The 9th Amendment to the Constitution is one of great importance, as well as being one of the hardest to understand or interpret. It reads, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people”. The 9th Amendment enforces that rights not specified in the Constitution still have to uphold by the federal government. Many of the Anti Federalists were worried at the time the Amendments were being written that the government would try to violate rights not specifically stated in the Constitution, so this amendment was written to address this concern. I believe this amendment has both good and bad qualities.
People’s rights need to be upheld by the government. There are many rights that should be upheld by the government, and there is no way all of them can be covered by the Constitution and its amendments. This amendment aides in the protection of the American people. There are implicit rights, such as the right to privacy, which this amendment protects. The right to privacy is not specified by any other amendment, and is a basic human right. Many rights have been unspecified. Without this amendment the government would have the right to violate many natural rights people have as humans.
This amendment is very vague. Any right that is not already specified by the other amendments in the Bill of Rights can be easily disputed. This causes this amendment to not be binding. The amendment can be easily overlooked because it is so unclear. This amendment is easily the most unclear of all in the Bill of Rights. The vagueness of it makes it very difficult to interpret and apply in the practice of law.