The key point of the 10th amendment of the US constitution [0] is that the people already _have_ the rights, and do not need to have them "granted" - rather, the rights of the national state are limited. The constitution grants powers to the government and individual states, and the remaining powers and rights are already the people's.
> 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.
This is in contrast to many prior systems of government, where the privileges available to a populace were whatever the monarch decided they could do, or which they had extracted as concessions from the monarchs via agreements like the Magna Carta.
> 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.
This is in contrast to many prior systems of government, where the privileges available to a populace were whatever the monarch decided they could do, or which they had extracted as concessions from the monarchs via agreements like the Magna Carta.
0: http://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/amend...