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Taking History Seriously: Reflections On A Critique Of Amar’S Treatment Of The Ninth Amendment In His Work On The Bill Of Rights, Thomas B. Mcaffee
Taking History Seriously: Reflections On A Critique Of Amar’S Treatment Of The Ninth Amendment In His Work On The Bill Of Rights, Thomas B. Mcaffee
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Dean William Treanor critiques constitutional textualism, contending that it pays too much attention to the words, grammar, and placement of clauses in the Constitution, and too little to the history leading to the adoption of the interpreted language. An important illustration is Professor Amar's treatment of the Ninth Amendment in his well-known book on the Bill of Rights. This treatment shares the perspective that history frequently sheds light on the meaning of constitutional text, but contends that the history yielding the Ninth Amendment demonstrates that it was drafted to secure the rights retained by the granting of limited federal powers—and …
Does The Federal Constitution Incorporate The Declaration Of Independence?, Thomas B. Mcaffee
Does The Federal Constitution Incorporate The Declaration Of Independence?, Thomas B. Mcaffee
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A standard view at the time of the adoption of the Constitution was that “a constitution does not in itself imply any more than a declaration of the relation which the different parts of the government have to each other, but does not imply security for the rights of individuals.” The drafters of the state constitutions had “assumed that government had all power except for specific prohibitions contained in a bill of rights.” When the federal Constitution was transmitted to the states by Congress, Nathaniel Gorham of Massachusetts defended the omission of a bill of rights based on the federal …
Inalienable Rights, Legal Enforceability, And American Constitutions: The Fourteenth Amendment And The Concept Of Unenumerated Rights, Thomas B. Mcaffee
Inalienable Rights, Legal Enforceability, And American Constitutions: The Fourteenth Amendment And The Concept Of Unenumerated Rights, Thomas B. Mcaffee
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It has become common to believe that those who ratified the Fourteenth Amendment “incorporated” not only the specific guarantees of the federal Bill of Rights, but also the other fundamental rights “retained by the people” in the Ninth Amendment. Even among those who acknowledge that the Ninth Amendment was originally a “federalism” provision that simply “retained” all that had not been granted as “powers” to the federal government are those who contend that, in light of the adoption of similar provisions in the state constitutions, by 1866 this language had become a free-floating affirmation of unenumerated rights. This Article attempts …
Federalism And The Protection Of Rights: The Modern Ninth Amendment’S Spreading Confusion, Thomas B. Mcaffee
Federalism And The Protection Of Rights: The Modern Ninth Amendment’S Spreading Confusion, Thomas B. Mcaffee
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Blindness to a basic understanding of the framers' design of our federal structure is largely responsible for the confusion that surrounds our understanding of the Ninth Amendment. The Ninth Amendment reads: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” In Griswold v. Connecticut, Justices Black and Stewart explained in separate dissenting opinions that the Ninth Amendment's reference to the other rights “retained by the people” alluded to the collective and individual rights the people “retained” by virtue of granting limited, enumerated powers to the national government. …
A Critical Guide To The Ninth Amendment, Thomas B. Mcaffee
A Critical Guide To The Ninth Amendment, Thomas B. Mcaffee
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Since the Supreme Court's decision in Griswold v. Connecticut, thousands of law students each year have confronted a confusing debate over the meaning of the Ninth Amendment. Writing for the majority in Griswold, Justice Douglas included the Ninth Amendment among the sources for deriving the “penumbral” right of privacy. More central to this article, in a separate concurrence Justice Goldberg contended that the Amendment provided a basis for the discovery of fundamental human rights beyond those included in the text of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In response, the dissenting Justices, Stewart and Black, argued that …
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
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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 …
The Original Meaning Of The Ninth Amendment, Thomas B. Mcaffee
The Original Meaning Of The Ninth Amendment, Thomas B. Mcaffee
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This Article presents the case for the residual rights reading of the ninth amendment as against the affirmative rights interpretation. The author evaluates the merits of these opposing views to determine whether the proponents of the new orthodoxy have really made the case for discarding the received reading. This analysis of the recent literature also raises questions about the way in which constitutional scholarship is conducted. The author concludes that the original meaning of the ninth amendment lends critical support to the project of originalist jurisprudence in the individual rights area and undercuts modem claims linking the ninth amendment to …