Law Commons^™

The Inescapable Federalism Of The Ninth Amendment, Kurt T. Lash

Law Faculty Publications

Over the past two decades, the most influential work on the Ninth Amendment has been that of libertarian scholar Randy Barnett. Over a series of articles and books, Barnett has presented the Ninth as a provision originally intended to preserve individual natural rights. Recently uncovered historical evidence, however, suggests that the Ninth originally limited federal power in order to preserve the right to local self-government. I presented this evidence in two articles published by the Texas Law Review, the first dealing with the original meaning of the Ninth Amendment, and the second dealing with a heretofore lost jurisprudence of the …