“ And meaningless is the difference the government suggests between concurrent power and concurrent legislation. A power is given to be exercised, and we are cast into helpless and groping bewilderment in trying to think of it apart from its exercise or the effect of its exercise. The addition to section 2 was a conscious adaptation of means to the purpose. ”

“ The authoritative dictionaries, general and law, and the decided cases, agree, that 'concurrent' means 'joint and equal authority,' 'running together, having the same authority,' and therefore the grant of concurrent power to the Congress and the states should give to each equal, the same, authority to enforce the Amendment by appropriate legislation. ”

“ Others assert spheres of the powers, involving no collision, it is said, the powers of Congress and the states being supreme and exclusive within the spheres of their exercise-called by counsel 'historical fields of jurisdiction.' I submit again, they should have consideration and decision.
The government has felt and exhibited the necessity of such consideration and decision. It knows the conflicts that exist or impend. It desires to be able to meet them, silence them and bring the repose that will come from a distinct declaration and delimitation of the power of Congress and the states. ”

“ The habits of a people were to be changed, large business interests were to be disturbed, and it was considered that the change and disturbance could only be effected by punitive and repressive legislation, and it was naturally thought that legislation enacted by 'the Congress and the several states,' by its concurrence would better enforce prohibition and avail for its enforcement the two great divisions of our governmental system, the nation and the states, with their influences and instrumentalities. ”

“ By section 10 of article 1 of the Constitution of the United States the states are deprived of power to do many things without the consent of Congress, and that consent has frequently been given, especially to contracts and agreements between states, which without it would be unconstitutional and void. ”

“ A contention that ascribes such power to those articles is untenable. The Eighteenth Amendment is part of the Constitution and as potent as any other part of it. Section 2, therefore, is a new provision of Power, power to the states as well as to Congress, and it is a contradiction to say that a power constitutionally concurrent in Congress and the states, in some way becomes constitutionally subordinate in the states to Congress. ”

“ Congress would have full power under the interstate commerce clause, and it would be its duty, to prevent the movement of such liquor for beverage purposes into or out of such a state and the plenary police power over the subject, so firmly established in the states before the Eighteenth Amendment was adopted, would continue for use in the restricted field which the first section of the Amendment leaves unoccupied-and the presumption must always be indulged that a state will observe and not defy the requirements of the national Constitution. ”

“ Such legislation would be concurrent in fact and in law, and could be enforced by the courts and officers of either the nation or the state, thereby insuring a more general and satisfactory observance of it than could possibly be obtained by the federal authorities alone. It would, to a great extent, relieve Congress of the burden and the general government of the odium to be derived from the antagonism which would certainly spring from enforcing within states federal laws which must touch the daily life of the people very intimately and often very irritatingly. ”

“ The government answers that the words mean separate and independent acto n, and, in case of conflict, that of Congress is supreme, and asserts besides, that the answer is sustained by historical and legal precedents. [1] I contest the assertions and oppose to them the common usage of our language, and the definitions of our lexicons, general and legal. [2] Some of the definitions assign to the words 'concurrent power' action in conjunction, contribution of effort, certainly harmony of action, not antagonism. ”

“ This has example in other powers of soverignty that the states and Congress possess. In McCulloch v. Maryland, at pages 425, 430 of 4 Wheat. (4 L. Ed. 579) , Chief Justice Marshall said that the power of taxation retained by the states was not abridged by the granting of a similar power to the government of the Union, and that it was to be concurrently exercised, and these truths, it was added, had never been denied, and that there was no 'clashing sovereignty' from incompatibility of right. ”

“ Conclusions 8 and 9, as I view them, are complements of each other, and express, with a certai verbal detail, the power of Congress and the states over the liquor traffic, using the word in its comprehensive sense as including the production of liquor, its transportation within the states, its exportation from them, and its importation into them. ”

“ In either case it is a constitutional mandate or prohibition that is being enforced.
11. While recognizing that there are limits beyond which Congress cannot go in treating beverages as within its power of enforcement, we think those limits are not transcended by the provision of the Volstead Act (title 2, § 1) , wherein liquors containing as much as one-half of 1 perc ent. of alcohol by volume and fit for use for beverage purposes are treated as within that power. ”

“ It will undoubtedly decrease the literature of the court if it does not increase its lucidity. However, reasons for the conclusions have been omitted, and my comment upon them may come from a misunderstanding of them, their present import and ultimate purpose and force. ”

“ They cn fuse-'make not light, but darkness, visible.' Of what use is a concession of power to the states to enact laws which cannot be enforced? Of what use a concession of jurisdiction to the courts of the states when their judgments cannot be executed, indeed the very law upon which it is exercised may be declared void in an antagonistic jurisdiction exerted in execution of an antagonistic power? ”