Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

“ Immediately it is seen that, if the Eighteenth Amendment were the entire Constitution, there would be a government of the whole American people with an enumerated power to interfere with their individual human liberty. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is the right of any one to work for the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment if he or she so desires, but it is the bounden duty of every one to see that so long as the Eighteenth Amendment is part of our Constitution it is105 accorded that respect upon which the whole structure of democratic government rests.”
But here we get right back to where we started. Citizens cannot be forced to respect a law for which, inwardly, they have a great contempt. Even a spiritual energy cannot be brought to bear, I fear, which is strong enough to bring about this desirable end. ”

“ It is useless labor to petition for a Sixteenth Amendment—we do not need it. Our fundamental institutions most adequately protect the rights of all citizens of the United States, irrespective of sex. In the twenty-four years since the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, 300 amendments to the Constitution have been introduced into Congress which never met with any approval from either House. ”

“ It is a mere incident of their teaching that they settle the plain fact that the supposed Eighteenth Amendment is not in the Constitution.
It is our own candid belief that very few Americans will be found to prefer the existence of the Amendment to the existence of America itself. ”

“ If the Constitution is to command the kind of respect which shall make it the steadfast bulwark of our institutions, the guaranty of our union and our welfare, it must preserve the character that befits such an instrument. The Eighteenth Amendment, if it were not odious as a perversion of the power of the Constitution, would be contemptible as an offense against its dignity. ”

“ The states may now by a constitutional amendment, with few limitations, change the whole structure and powers of the government, and thus legalize any present excess of power. And the general right of a society in other cases to change the government at the will of a majority of the whole people, in any manner, that may suit its pleasure, is undisputed, and seems indisputable. If there be any remedy at all for the minority in such cases, it is a remedy never provided for by human institutions. ”

“ I ask the wholehearted cooperation of all our citizens to the end that this return of individual freedom shall not be accompanied by the repugnant conditions that obtained prior to the adoption of the 18th Amendment and those that have existed since its adoption. Failure to do this honestly and courageously will be a living reproach to us all. ”

“ In case of the usurpation of the government of a State by one man or an oligarchy, it becomes a duty of the United States to make good the guaranty to that State of a republican form of government, and so to maintain the homogeneousness of all. Does the lapse of time reveal defects? A simple mode of amendment is provided in the Constitution itself, so that its conditions can always be made to conform to the requirements of advancing civilization. No room is allowed even for the thought of a possibility of its coming to an end. ”

“ The adoption of the amendment reunites us beyond all power of disruption; it heals the wound that is still imperfectly closed; it removes slavery, the element which has so long perplexed and divided the country; it makes of us once more a united people, renewed and strengthened, bound more than ever to mutual affection and support.
The amendment to the Constitution being adopted, it would remain for the States whose powers have been so long in abeyance to resume their places in the two branches of the National Legislature, and thereby complete the work of restoration. ”

“ Similarly, the Court has held that the efficacy of the ratification of a proposed constitutional amendment in the light of previous rejection or subsequent attempted withdrawal is political in nature, pertaining to the political departments, with the ultimate authority in Congress by virtue of its control over the promulgation of the adoption of amendments. ”

“ In providing for future changes in the Constitution itself the convention also thrust aside the old rule of unanimous approval, and decided that an amendment could be made on a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress and ratification by three-fourths of the states. This change was of profound significance. Every state agreed to be bound in the future by amendments duly adopted even in case it did not approve them itself. America in this way set out upon the high road that led from a league of states to a nation. ”

“ The majority faithfully applies our precedent and, based on a wealth of historical evidence, concludes that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause against the States. ”

“ What is needed above all is a clear and wholehearted recognition of fundamentals. And I do not believe that the American people have got so far away from their fundamentals that such recognition will be denied when the case is clearly put before them. There is one and only one thing that could justify such a violation of liberty and of the cardinal principles of rational government as is embodied in the Eighteenth Amendment. ”

“ Its vitality is due to the fact that, by usage, judicial interpretation, and, when necessary, formal amendment, it can be thus adapted to the ever-accelerating changes of the most progressive age in history, and that a people have administered the Constitution who, in the process of such adaptation, have generally shown the same spirit of conservative self-restraint as did the men who framed it. ”

“ Is not their example a sound precedent for those who are now constituting a new government of Americans and giving it power over their freedom, for those who made the Eighteenth Amendment and those who upheld its validity? ”

“ All history teaches that liberty is in danger from the tyranny of majorities as well as from that of oligarchies and monarchies; accordingly the Constitution says: No mere majority, no ordinary legislative procedure, shall be competent to deprive the people of the liberty that is hereby guaranteed to them. But the Eighteenth Amendment says: No mere majority, no mere legislative procedure, shall be competent to restore to the people the liberty that is hereby taken away from them. ”

“ If our Government is only the compact of a confederation, then not only is there no need, but we have not the right to adopt the proposed amendment. For by it an institution fostered by the legislation of some of the States would be overthrown, in defiance of that legislation. But the right, or constitutional power, of itself implies the necessity to adopt the amendment whenever the occasion for it may arise. The right is made part of the Constitution: the necessity, or expediency, must be determined by circumstances outside of the Constitution. ”