Table of Contents
Chapter I - Perverting the Constitution
Chapter II - Creating a Nation of Lawbreakers
Chapter III - Destroying Our Federal System
Chapter IV - How the Amendment Was Put Through
Chapter V - The Law Makers and the Law
Chapter VI - The Law Enforcers and the Law
Chapter VII - Nature of the Prohibitionist Tyranny
Chapter VIII - One-Half of One Percent
Chapter IX - Prohibition and Liberty
Chapter X - Prohibition and Socialism
Chapter XI - Is There Any Way Out?
CHAPTER I
PERVERTING THE CONSTITUTION
THE object of a Constitution like that of the United States is to
establish certain fundamentals of government in such a way that they
cannot be altered or destroyed by the mere will of a majority of the
people, or by the ordinary processes of legislation. The framers of
the Constitution saw the necessity of making a distinction between
these fundamentals and the ordinary subjects of law-making, and
accordingly they, and the people who gave their approval to the
Constitution, deliberately arrogated to themselves the power to
shackle future majorities in regard to the essentials of the system of
government which they brought into being. They did this with a clear
consciousness of the object which they had in view--the stability of
the new government and the protection of certain fundamental rights
and liberties. But they did not for a moment entertain the idea of
imposing upon future generations, through the extraordinary sanctions
of the Constitution, their views upon any special subject of ordinary
legislation. Such a proceeding would have seemed to them far more
monstrous, and far less excusable, than that tyranny of George III and
his Parliament which had given rise to the American Revolution.
Until the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment, the Constitution of
the United States retained the character which properly belongs to the
organic law of a great Federal Republic. The matters with which it
dealt were of three kinds, and three only--the division of powers as
between the Federal and the State governments, the structure of the
Federal government itself, and the safeguarding of the fundamental
rights of American citizens. These were things that it was felt
essential to remove from the vicissitudes attendant upon the temper of
the majority at given time. There was not to be any doubt from year to
year as to the limits of Federal power on the one hand and State power
on the other; nor as to the structure of the Federal government and
the respective functions of the legislative, executive, and judicial
departments of that government; nor as to the preservation of certain
fundamental rights pertaining to life, liberty and property.
That these things, once laid down in the organic law of the country,
should not be subject to disturbance except by the extraordinary and
difficult process of amendment prescribed by the Constitution was the
dictate of the highest political wisdom; and it was only because of
the manifest wisdom upon which it was based that the Constitution, in
spite of many trials and drawbacks, commanded, during nearly a century
and a half of momentous history, the respect and devotion of
generation after generation of American citizens. Although the
Constitution of the United States has been pronounced by an
illustrious British statesman the most wonderful work ever struck off
at a given time by the brain and purpose of man, it would be not only
folly, but superstition, to regard it as perfect. It has been amended
in the past, and will need to be amended in the future. The Income Tax
Amendment enlarged the power of the Federal government in the field of
taxation, and to that extent encroached upon a domain theretofore
reserved to the States. The amendment which referred the election of
Senators to popular vote, instead of having them chosen by the State
Legislatures, altered a feature of the mechanism originally laid down
for the setting up of the Federal government. The amendments that were
adopted as a consequence of the Civil War were designed to put an end
to slavery and to guarantee to the negroes the fundamental rights of
freemen.
