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The Freedom of Self-Hattred
What’s in a hat? Moreover, how do we defend and define our right to wear one as citizens
of these United States, when this right is not explicit in the Constitution? After all, the
unenumerated legal rights of our citizenry must spring up from the vast field of probable intent
and be irrigated by a distinguishable stream of inherency to be truly considered legitimate. While
examining the 9th Amendment it becomes clear that the authors and ratifiers of the Bill of Rights
sought to specify the broad, perhaps infinite, application of the very term “rights.” Additionally,
sovereignty of the people, an idea irrevocably woven into the very fabric of our constitution,
concretizes the foundational idea that the hierarchical form of governance had to be not only
modified but in essence reversed. We, as a people, wrested authority from the cold hard grasp of
a monarch and unforgivingly, irreversibly, handed it to ourselves instead in an act of great
defiance. We destroyed the King’s crown and in so doing, embraced the people’s hat! Lastly,
the 1st Amendment can be considered a guarantee of expression that extends beyond the
utterance of words into the spectrum of fashion (and hats!), if read in the scope it was intended.
The 9th Amendment says: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not
be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. These words recognize a
tangible need to broaden the very definition and potentiality of rights. James Madison, who
helped conceive of and author the Bill of Rights, seems to have been indicating broad, perhaps
innumerable, rights by including an amendment specifically referring to unenumerated rights.
This amendment tangibly establishes the breadth of these rights by merely alluding to all those
not listed. Additionally, Professor Amar referred to this in Hearing the People 1, when he said
there was “Sweeping textual suggestion that there are privileges that shall not be abridged, but
without guidance as to how to find those privileges.” It is left to us, the people, the sovereign
and unfettered American populace, to realize fundamental freedoms that by their very nature are
difficult if not impossible to limit. The 9th can be seen as the file baked into the Constitutional
cake (borrowing Professor Amar’s metaphor), allowing us to escape potential governmental
limitations and restrictions should the need arise.
If all of that is somehow insufficient to affirm our hat-wearing rights, we can also discuss
the seminal concept of our Constitution, proudly unveiled in the preamble itself: sovereignty of

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“we the people.” As Professor Amar said in lecture, “popular sovereignty [is] broader than the
1st Amendment and it gives us rights against the President, the Congress, the… Courts….” In
other words, our collective wish is their (government’s) command. Wearing a hat needn’t be
specified in the Constitution, it’s implied by its very practice amongst a sovereign people. For
enumerated inclusion in the Bill of Rights, hat wearing would have to be considered an explicitly
given right or one that lacked implied sovereignty. Implicit rights, however, are malleable and
alive, like the people, like society, like time and rulership itself.
Additionally, I suggest that the philosophic quintessence of the 1st Amendment, free
speech, is not about simply utterance but the right to true self expression, not remaining hidden
or masked by societal restriction or norms. Fashion can in some senses be a provocative
wordless conversation about identity. When our fashion is controlled, our speech is as well. In
the military or workplace, we sometimes dress uniformly to signify the sacrifice of our
individual will to a collective one. Contrarily, a magnificent suit or ball gown can be emblematic
of freedom’s expansion through wealth or success (Oscars, Inaugurations, anyone?). A hat then,
a variety of hats and the freedom to choose to wear or not wear it, can be linked to very concept
of free speech and proof of our very rights as citizens.
Through the unenumerated rights implied in the 9th amendment, the sovereignty of the
people inherent in the Constitution and its ratification process and the freedom of expression in
the 1st amendment, it is clear that among so many other great and some as yet unidentified
rights, we, the people, have indeed the right to wear a hat! The hat in our example is like the 9th
Amendment, in that it symbolizes freedoms known and unknown, listed and unlisted, realized
and not yet conceived. Freedom is the very spirit of our nation, and it is our duty to fully express
this vastness.