The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-04-25
THE IOWA DECISION.

THE IOWA DECISION.
While it is quite certain that had the ques-
ton been any other than one involving the
liquor traffic the lowe Supreme Court would
never have rendered the decision it has upon
the prohbitory amendment, there can no
good result in unreasoning clamor against it,
while it will be universally conceded that
however fallacious the reasoning may appear,
there is yet something exceedingly plausible
in the positions taken by the majority. The
dissenting opinion CT Justice Beck may
prove to be equally plausible, and may, in
deed, be the better argument, but the fact re-
mains that as to Iowa the amendment is
void. With one position of the court we
must heartily agree that in the
amendment of the fundamental law
every essential step should be carefully and
done in Iowa there remains but the necessity
of beginning anew and pursuing the matter
in the line indicated by the court To allow
wild and unlawful proceedings in this case
may open the door to wilder and more dan
gerous proceedings for the future, and those
who now seem to be the sufferers from this
call to halt may be greater sufferers at no dis
tant day from the wilder doings of another
class of men. Ii the people of Iowa want
their constitution amended they will find
way to amend it that will not conflict with
the constitution itself, and delays ana dis
appointments like that which now CONFRONT
them will not prove disastrous in the end.
Men in pursuit of the truth can afford to
wait. 1t is only falsehood and false doc
trines that dread the ordeal of time To a
good cause time and trials are an element of
strength. If there is no substantial founda-
ton for prohibition it had better fail at this
juncture than to fail hereafter; if the prin-
cipe is correct it will come forth all the
better grounded by the conflict thrust upon
it. Only the party that is in the wrong, that
is fighting for the wrong, need regret the set
back that this decision has given. We
are not saying that prohibition is the
thiiiSi vi thC pi uNCilb bhiASi vi VIC PloS
tical thing, any more than we say that the
majority opinion of the Iowa court is right;
but we do say that if prohibitionists them
selves believe their cause to be just and right,
nothing is to be gained by unfair attacks
upon the court, just as nothing will certainly
be lost to good cause by needful delay.
The Journal has already pointed out plainly
wherein the Iowa case differs from the ques-
ton raised in Indiana over the alleged faulty
enrolment of the late constitutional amend
ments here. In Iowa the Su-
preme Court, in its first decision,
showed that the unbroken legislative
practice had been i'll the direction now con-
tended for and that such action was legis-
lative Interpretation of the constitution
which the courts might not disregard. In
Indiana the legislative Interpretation had
been in another direction, and by the same
rule of construction the court here would be
compelled to hold a constitutional amend
ment valid, although in one of its steps to
formal ratification the text had not been
entered at length upon the journals of the
General Assembly. Indeed, as matter of
fact and history, it is known that no amend
ment now Incorporated into our constitution,
the validity of which is unquestioned, was
entered at length in the legislative journals.
The student of legal and constitutional pos
sibilities may be interested in examining the
doors opened by the Iowa court for impeach
ing and overthrowing the war amendments
to the Federal constitution, should the time
ever arrive when a majority of the United
States Supreme Court shall be of men politi-
cally opposed to the doctrines they enact;
but with that we have nothing now to do,
but simply throw it out as a suggestion.