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 the case. But from every standpoint the way in
which the Eighteenth Amendment was actually put through Congress and
the Legislatures has a great deal to do with the case. Prohibitionists
constantly point to the big majority in Congress, and the promptness
and almost unanimity of the approval by the Legislatures, as proof of
an overwhelming preponderance of public sentiment in favor of the
Amendment. It is proof of no such thing. To begin with, nothing is
more notorious than the fact that a large proportion of the members of
Congress and State Legislatures who voted for the Prohibition
Amendment were not themselves in favor of it. Many of them openly
declared that they were voting not according to their own judgment but
in deference to the desire of their constituents. But there is not the
slightest reason to believe that one out of twenty of those gentlemen
made any effort to ascertain the desire of a majority of their
constituents; nor, for that matter, that they would have followed that
desire if they had known what it was. What they were really concerned
about was to get the support, or avoid the enmity, of those who held,
or were supposed to hold, the balance of power. For that purpose a
determined and highly organized body of moderate dimensions may
outweigh a body ten times as numerous and ten times as representative
of the community. The Anti-Saloon League was the power of which
Congressmen and Legislaturemen alike stood in fear. Never in our
political history has there been such an example of consummately
organized, astutely managed, and unremittingly maintained
intimidation; and accordingly never in our history has a measure of
such revolutionary character and of such profound importance as