British Tyranny, the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, The Origins of the Bill of Rights (Part 6:)

The ninth and 10th amendment to the Constitution of the United States have very deep roots. Roots that go back to the principal of what the structure of power is. The belief of the founders was a structure power went from the creator, to the people, to government in that order. A lot of world history and specifically Western history influence founding fathers, from the Greek and Roman empires Socrates and Aristotle, to John Locke and Charles Montesquieu. Though British tyranny did have influence in the development of the ninth and 10th amendments you have to go back to philosophy to understand the meaning behind the motivation of the ninth and 10th amendments. It can be summed up with natural rights and the proper order power. These basic values are the principal motivators behind the ninth and 10th amendments.

Here we will look at specifically natural rights and the order of power, without going through the entire genesis of human history, this will start with John Locke and his Second Treatises of government, and also Spirit of Laws by Montesquieu. Both authors and philosophers influence can be seen on founding fathers pre-revolutionary colonial history and writings, revolutionary history writings, early state governments, early charters, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution of the United States. These philosophers had a profound impact on the founding fathers just in themselves, and British tyranny and oppression only made these beliefs stronger.

 

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Perhaps the key to this entire amendment is this part, "deny or disparage others (rights) retained by the people". The reason for this is, what other rights are retained by the people? The ninth amendment prohibits laws or the Constitution itself be construed to deny any other rights retained by the people. The important thing now is to determine what other rights are retained by the people. From here, we can start building on the genesis of ninth amendment.

As already stated, John Locke and Charles Montesquieu wrote two profound books John Locke wrote the Two treatises of Government and Charles Montesquieu the Spirit of Laws. Both discussed the concept of natural rights, rights to all people inherently have simply by existing. These are rights that do not require justification to possess, they require no effort from anybody else to hold and retain, they are not something that can be taken away by anybody. These are rights that are essential to all human beings, they are possessed by the individual and may be used at will by the individual. The Declaration of Independence calls these rights the unalienable rights and lists a few of them;

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and pursuit of happiness;

Of note is the wording used in the Declaration of Independence, it is specific and deliberate. The Declaration of Independence does not say these are the unalienable rights, but rather says "among these" rights, to deliberately state and it is not limited to these rights but this is rather a selection of the unalienable rights.

In the second treatises of government, and book II chapter 2, section 4, "Of the state of nature", John Locke states following;

TO understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man.

This is the basic premise of John Locke with natural law, in which he basically says free will of a person is absolute, they are free to dispose of their possessions and persons as they see fit without permission from anybody else and not having to depend on anybody else to execute these rights. But he does make the point and states these rights must be also within the bounds of natural law later on in Chapter 2;

no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions:

Here he is placing the first limit to what the limits of natural laws are, to not deprive another of theirs. In section 7. He states this very clearly;

And that all men maybes restrained from invading others' rights, and for doing hurt to one another, and the wall nature be observed,

What John Locke has done is establish what set of basic ground rules, for what a person is free to do with their possessions and themselves without interference or dependence on anybody else. However, that it goes only as far until it prohibits or stops somebody else's rights to execute same. He has defined what natural law is, free will and how far that limit of free will extends, its limit is to not infringe on another's natural rights.

It is these natural rights that the ninth amendment is talking about in regards the others retained by the people. What the ninth amendment is stating that the Constitution or other laws cannot be construed to deny. We can go back to the Declaration of Independence and see some of the grievances made against the King in denying some of these rights. These will be compared to standing law the time, whether from the Magna Carta, English Bill of Rights or the charters for the colonies themselves. Here is a sample of some;

for depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury;

the Magna Carta afforded the right of trial by jury, in part 29

No freeman is to be taken or imprisoned or disseised (to deprive wrongfully) of free tenement for his liberties for free customs, or outlawed or exiled or in any way ruined, nor will we go again such a man or send him against and save by lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land. To no one will we sell or deny of delayed right of justice.

This is a topic already discussed in the right of trial by jury, which was deprived which and led to the fifth, and sixth amendments. The ninth amendment is talking about rights that are retained by the people that are not expressly stated in the Constitution or in other places. One of these rights is to be able to choose a government, that reflects their desires and or their interests. The Declaration of Independence gives us several examples of how the government of the colonies was either altered, inhibited or abolished by the King.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Rep. houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasion of on the rights of the people.

He has obstructed the administration of Justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount of payment of their salaries. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their active pretended legislation;

for cutting off our trade with all parts of the world;

for imposing taxes on us without our consent;

for abolishing the free system of English laws in neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies;

for taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our government;

for suspending our legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with the power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He has constrained our fellow citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioner of their friends and brethren, or fall themselves by their hands.

Each one of these charges against King George III. In some manner each of these charges infringes on the basic laws of nature that the founders believed to be true. That people were of the right to self govern themselves and choose a government which best reflects her ideals, and the King repeatedly suspended or dissolved colonial governments. An individual is the decider of their own future, yet he forced them and societies to take arms against a fellow countrymen. He suspended the laws, constitutions and charters of the American colonies contrary to established written law. Natural law takes into consideration that people will violate these rights at times and also allows for the punishment of those who do violate the natural law infringe on those of others through an independent judiciary, however he made the Judiciary dependent on him.

Most of these rights are not directly spelled out neither the Magna Carta, English Bill of Rights, the abolition of Star chamber, or the many other other English documents. However, the founders and many Americans believe nonetheless that these rights belong to the people and not to a King. Even during colonial times leading up to the revolution, the King did not have absolute power, he was limited by Parliament and other precedents such as Magna Carta and English Bill of Rights. To the Americans, he was also limited by the rules of nature, that individuals and societies are in charge of their own future and their own destiny and not to the arbitrary rule of a King. These rules and limits did not need to be written to indicate or support that the people possessed them, they were inherent to all people by nature of being. These are the rights retained by the people.

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The 10th amendment has less Genesis dealing with the American colonies then probably any other amendment in the Bill of Rights. But that is not to say it does not have influence from the American colonies. The 10th amendment states in essence whatever the Constitution does not delegate to the federal government is retained by the states and the people. This comes from the desire to keep government local to the state level. This can be traced to British tyranny in the basic desire to self governance, to not have a distant government making decisions in the local area. As stated not only the ninth amendment above, but in previous amendments as well, the British Crown exercised absolute power of the the American colonies, with multiple times the King superseding, overriding, or abolishing the more local colonial governments.

At the beginning of the American Revolution the 13 colonies viewed themselves as 13 independent states, each sovereign to itself and to no other. They did form a loose confederation, which later became strengthened under the Articles Confederation, but even then, each state governed itself. It was this time of 13 independent states, 13 independent governments, with a desire of self-reliance and not from a distant government, which is at the heart of the Genesis of the 10th amendment.

These items are discussed later on in a revolutionary and pre-Constitution, time frames. However, the absolute tyranny of a tyrant from an ocean away can be placed at the very center of the motivation for the 10th amendment, and the actions taken by the crown over the centuries of colonial rule are documented, and many of grievances listed in the Declaration of Independence in which distant rule superseded local rule.

 

 

The Origins of the Bill of Rights (Part 1: British Tyranny, the First Amendment)

The Origins of the Bill of Rights (Part 2: British Tyranny, the Second and Third Amendments)

The Origins of the Bill of Rights (Part 3: British Tyranny, the Fourth Amendment)

British Tyranny, the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, The Origins of the Bill of Rights (Part 4:)

British Tyranny, the Seventh and Eighth Amendments, The Origins of the Bill of Rights (Part 5:)