Nine and Ten

Amendment IX:

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

This means that the the wise men who wrote this bill of rights did not, in any way, think this was the last word on human rights and the rule of law.  It means that the mechanisms of courts, judges and juries are meant to continually define where the lines are drawn.  Therefore, when you hear a politician, or your crazy uncle, griping about how allowing same sex marriage is "unconstitutional," you can immediately call shenanigans on that nonsense.  Learn Amendment IX by heart, it's not that hard.  Think about it, paraphrase if you need to, be able to explain it so simply that a five year old can understand it: your rights to stuff are not more important than other people's rights to stuff.  Just because you have a right to bear arms doesn't mean you can walk into Wal-Mart and terrify the living daylights out of little Suzy, because you think you need to be strapped on the way to getting that bonus sized box of Capri Sun (you hear me open carry people, you're actually the ones who are being unconstitutional, by denying and disparaging the rights of the majority of your fellow citizens to not live in terror when they see you and your Gat in aisle five at the Piggly Wiggly).  The laws "enumerated" by the Constitution are necessarily and by intent, made to be defined, refined, limited and exercised by a citizenry committed to the values of a free and democratic society.  If you wonder how things go so horribly awry, examine whether or not we have a citizenry committed to the values of a free and democratic society.  The Constitution has in mind the expansion of human rights and the ability of a society to adapt it's rules to meet new situations, rather than clamp down on the way things happened to be at the moment.  This Amendment sets the groundwork for some of the most important advances in our collective mindset, by simply stating: this work is not finished.

Amendment X:

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.

This one is important too, because we are making an attempt at being a "united" nation, not a confederacy of sovereign states.  The argument over the precise implications of Amendment X were sort of crucial when the "recent unpleasantness" between the Union and the Confederacy came to a head.  If the Constitution doesn't take the reigns on some issue, or prohibit states from doing so, then the States get to choose, which has some unfortunate implications for transgender folk in North Carolina last week or for women who want an abortion in Texas.  State governments are much more democratic than the federal government, which means they are more beholden to the ignorance, bigotry and selfishness of the people.  Democracy is a dangerous proposition, as the framers of the Constitution knew full well.  They knew that there were some people out there, full voting citizens who believed witches could give them the evil eye and curse their crops.  They knew that there were people out there who would believe vaccinations give kids autism.  They knew there were people out there who would willingly believe that global climate change was something a bunch of commie liberals made up to force them to stop driving trucks that get 5 miles to the gallon.  They knew there were people out there who would willingly support and elect Donald Trump or Ted Cruz.  And so there needed to be rules, but they also knew that there was no way the Constitution was ever going to be able to hold all the rules necessary to run a country as complex as even the original 13 could be.
So as they wrapped up this first batch of amendments they turned their eyes towards all the things that still needed worked out, and they set up a system where priorities could be set, and authority could be defined, and responsibility parceled out.  Given the differences that clearly exist between their world and ours, I'm actually rather in awe of how well they did.
But now I'm done playing lawyer.