>>>If we already had the rights, why do we need the constitution????
>>>
>>>Please explain your logic...
>>
>>It's the same logic used by the people who wrote the ninth amendment.
>>
>>The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
>
>PMFJI, but isn't this obviously an argument over semantics?

It's an important distinction.

If the government grants rights, which is to say that it allows these rights to exist, then the converse must be true - the government can withdraw or destroy those rights.

However, if instead the government recognizes that certain infrangible rights exist by enumerating them in the Constitution, it gives us as a nation a set of standards to hold to so that there will (or rather should) be no question as to the pre-existence of those particular rights and the inability of the goverment to violate them.

Nowhere in the amendments does the word "grant" appear, nor does any similar language. Language the same as or similar to "the right to .... shall not be denied" appears numerous times.