murder was illegal BEFORE the Constitution OR the Bill of Rights...“.. it’s NOT in the Bill of Rights, and i’m hard pressed to find it in the Constitution, so... i guess he’s right.”
Scalia is being a little disingenuous with this argument that if it’s not specifically listed in the Constitution, that our founders didn’t believe it deserved to be protected. That why they had the 9th and 10th Amendments:
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others 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.
I don’t believe that a right to an abortion is contemplated here, but it is only those who wish to expand the powers of the government far beyond the imaginings of our founders who would declare that if it is not specifically listed in the Bill of Rights, we have no right at all to protection by the Courts. For instance, the right to make love to your spouse is not spelled out in the Constitution—does this mean that Congress can constitutionally prohibit this behavior?
murder was illegal BEFORE the Constitution OR the Bill of Rights...