9th amendment of Constitution

The Ninth Amendment of the Constitution states, “The Enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people”. This means to me that just because the Constitution specifically grants the people certain rights, it does not mean that they have only those rights that are mentioned. In other words, if the Constitution doesn’t say anything about the right to graduate, for example, then the people may still have that right. But to graduate we still need to earn and go through the process that state government requires for high school.

The ninth Amendment is simply a statement that rights, other than those listed, may exist, and that just because they are not listed doesn’t mean they can be violated as long as other stated laws are not broken. The ninth Amendment constitutes an independent source of rights protected from infringement by either the states or the federal Government. While the ninth Amendment –and indeed the entire Bill of Rights- originally concerned restrictions upon federal power, the subsequently enacted Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the state as well from abridging fundamental personal liberties (Cornell University).

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