as a source of authority flourish when the most elementary of its functions is supinely abandoned to the custody of a higher and a stronger power?  The Prohibition Amendment has done more to sap the vitality of our State system than could be done by a hundred years of misrule at Albany or Harrisburg or Springfield.  The effects of that misrule are more directly apparent, but they leave the State spirit untouched in its vital parts.  The Prohibition Amendment strikes at the root of that spirit, and its evil precedent, if unreversed, will steadily cut off the source from which that spirit derives its life.

CHAPTER IV

How the amendment was put through

There has been a vast amount of controversy over the question whether a majority of the American people favored the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment.  There is no possible way to settle that question.  Even future votes, if any can be had that may be looked upon as referendum votes, cannot settle it, whichever way they may turn out.  If evidence should come to hand which indicates that a majority of the American people favor the retention of the Amendment now that it is an accomplished fact, this will not prove that they favored its adoption in the first place; it may be that they wish to give it a fuller trial, or it may be that they do not wish to go through the upheaval and disturbance of a fresh agitation of the question or it may be some other reason quite different from what was in the situation four years ago.  On the other hand, if the referendum should seem adverse, this might be due to disgust at the lawlessness that has developed in connection with the Prohibition Amendment, or to a realization of the vast amount of discontent it has aroused, or to something else that was not in the minds of the majority when the Amendment was put through.  But really the question is of very little importance.  From the standpoint of fundamental political doctrine, it makes no difference whether 40 million, or 50 million, or 60 million people out of a hundred million desired to put into the Constitution a provision which is an offense against the underlying idea of any Constitution, an injury to the American Federal system, an outrage upon the first principles both of law and of liberty.  And if, instead of viewing the matter from the standpoint of fundamental political doctrine, we look upon it as a question of Constitutional procedure, it is again—­though for a different reason—­a matter of little consequence whether a count of noses would have favored the adoption of the Amendment or not.  The Constitution provides a definite method for its own amendment, and this method was strictly carried out—­the Amendment received the approval of the requisite number of Representatives, Senators and State Legislatures; from the standpoint of Constitutional procedure the question of popular majorities has nothing to do with