dc_dux, the Federalist Papers won't tell you anything about the Bill of Rights. The Federalist Papers dealt only with the original unamended constitution. For discussion of the Bill of Rights you have to look at the debates in the First Congress, which proposed the Bill of Rights, and the ratification debates in the states. (IIRC, it started as 12 Amendments and got sharpened)
Here is a quote from the abstract of Barnett's paper, <A HREF="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=789384">The Ninth Amendment: It Means What It Says</A>, published at Texas Law Review, Vol. 85, No. 1, 2006:
Quote:
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the Ninth Amendment actually meant at the time of its enactment what it appears now to say: the unenumerated (natural) rights that people possessed prior to the formation of government, and which they retain afterwards, should be treated in the same manner as those (natural) rights that were enumerated in the Bill of Rights. In short, the Amendment is what it appears to be: a meaningful check on federal power and a significant guarantee of individual liberty.the Ninth Amendment actually meant at the time of its enactment what it appears now to say: the unenumerated (natural) rights that people possessed prior to the formation of government, and which they retain afterwards, should be treated in the same manner as those (natural) rights that were enumerated in the Bill of Rights. In short, the Amendment is what it appears to be: a meaningful check on federal power and a significant guarantee of individual liberty.
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Oh, and I was wrong about where he is a law prof. He has left BU and is now at Georgetown.