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An Essay On The Ninth Amendment: Interpretation For The New World Order, Phoebe A. Haddon
An Essay On The Ninth Amendment: Interpretation For The New World Order, Phoebe A. Haddon
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
The Bill Of Rights, Social Contract Theory, And The Rights “Retained” By The People, Thomas B. Mcaffee
The Bill Of Rights, Social Contract Theory, And The Rights “Retained” By The People, Thomas B. Mcaffee
Scholarly Works
The Ninth Amendment provides that “[t]he enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” There is no question that this Amendment was designed as a savings clause, to ensure that the specification of particular rights would not raise an inference that the Bill of Rights exhausted the rights which the people held as against the newly-created national government. But there is an ongoing debate as to nature of these additional rights retained by the people and as to the sort of claim they might support against the exercise …
Beyond The Second Amendment: An Individual Right To Arms Viewed Through The Ninth Amendment , Nicholas J. Johnson
Beyond The Second Amendment: An Individual Right To Arms Viewed Through The Ninth Amendment , Nicholas J. Johnson
Faculty Scholarship
Traditionally, the debate over the individual right to possess firearms has focused on the origins and meaning of the Second Amendment. Some constitutional scholars have dismissed the idea that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to arms. They argue that it only prevents the federal government from disarming states. Other scholars, focusing on the language of the amendment and its historical context, conclude that it does indeed establish an individual right to firearms. This article examines whether, even absent the Second Amendment, the Constitution restrains government from taking away what may be individuals' best tools of self-defense. The foothold …
Natural Rights And Positive Law: A Comment On Professor Mcaffee's Paper, Philip A. Hamburger
Natural Rights And Positive Law: A Comment On Professor Mcaffee's Paper, Philip A. Hamburger
Faculty Scholarship
Were the rights retained by the people defined by positive law? This is the issue explored by Professor McAffee and various other scholars who dispute the history of the Ninth Amendment. Surveying the work of these other historians, Professor McAffee distinguishes between those who argue that the framers and ratifiers were "positivists" and those who attribute to the framers and ratifiers a so-called "natural-law" or "natural-rights" perspective-the latter being the view that the rights retained by the people included rights not delineated by the United States Constitution. McAffee rejects this latter point of view in favor of the positivist interpretation …