The American issue. [volume] (Westerville, Ohio) 1912-19??, 1928-07-01
THE EIGHTEENTH AMENDMENTS
ITS VALIDITY-PUBLIC OPINION

VAGlDI1Y-POBLlC OPIN1ON
In Symphony Hall, Boston, April 8,
1927 DR.. Nicholas Murray Butler, Presi-
dent of Columbia University, made use
of this language.
ON a dark March afternoon in 1920
sat in the Supreme Court of the United
States in the room whose walls had
echoed with the voices of Clay and Of
Calhoun, Of Webster and Of Benton and
the men Of long ago, and L listened to the
conclusion of a great argument. The
case at bar involved the validity of the
SO called Eighteenth Amendment to the
Constitution of the United States. Was
that proposed amendment a valid exer-
else of the power conferred by the fifth
article of the Constitution?
I'm front of an attentive court stood
the tall, slim figure of an acknowledged
leader of the American bar, one of the
most distinguished public servants of his
generation, who was presenting the argu-
ment against the validity Of the amend
ment. He looked at the clock, behind
the chief justice and saw that it was
within two or three minutes of the hour
when the court would rise, and he con-
Guided with these exact words:
of your honors shall find way to up
hold the validity of this amendment the
government OF Tie OUQO6Q 0GdJeS DIS we
have known it will have ceased to exist
Your honorS will have found a legislative
authority hitherto unknown to the Con-
stitution, and untrammeled by any of its
limitations. Your honors will have de-
cided that tWo-thirds of a quorum of each
house of the Congress, with the support
of a majority of a quorum of the LegiS-
latures of SO states, may enact any law
relating to the life the liberty, or the
property of its citizens, to the form and
fabric of the government, or to the bill
of rights itself without recourse and with
out appeal. In that case, your honorS,
John Marshall need never have sat upon
your bench
ut was a tense moment when Elihu
Root closed. The argument was ended
and the court rose.
'Mr Chairman, made a silent VOW,
there and then, that, if the court should
find a way to uphold that amendment,
despite that argument, would give such
strength and such time as were at my
command to appeal to the American
people to undo that Wrecking of our gov
eminent.
1.-The Eighteenth Amendment is the law,
and as such we owe it obedience but we
owe to the underlying principles of
America an appeal to the people whose
Constitution, whose judiciary, and whose
Legislatures, they are-an appeal to undo
that damage and to correct that stupen-
dous error.
MY appeal is from the judicial and
legislative branches of the peoples gov
eminent to the people themselves to take
out of that Constitution a provision in
the form of an amendment which is not
an amendment, which is substantive
legislation, which is a revolutionary act.
which has no likeness to anything in the
Constitution, which has nothing to do
with the form and structure of the gov
eminent of which the limitation Of pow
ers granted therein, but which is an or
binary municipal law, operating directly
and almost irrevocably upon the whole
body of our citizenship"
Is MIR. ROOTS REASONING SOUND?
1t is not the purpose Of this paper to
discuss the value or the merits of the
Eighteenth Amendment, but the validity
and it's relation to public opinion in its
adoption and ratification. And as DR..
Buffers opening statements are an cpl.
tome of Mr.. Roots argument to the SUI
preme Court with few additions, the
discussion will be confined to the propo-
sitions contained in those statements re-
solved in the following:
1. The amendment Is revolutionary.
2. It Is substantive legislation