Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-03-13
The Tenth-Amendment Argument.

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With astonishing persistence some
opponents Of prohibition continue to
pitch their tune in the key Of the
proposition that the eighteenth amend
ment is invalid, for one reason or an
other. Some aver that it was never
properly ratified. Some declare that
it was improperly and Illegally phrased
In the inclusion of the time limit pro-
vision. Now comes special commit
tee Of the New York County Lawyers
Association, which for two years has
been studying the question, and de-
clares, by vote Of 6 to /, that the
eighteenth amendment was Illegally
adopted and ratified. The ground for
this remarkable conclusion, which has
been advanced before, is that the
eighteenth amendment is contrary to
the spirit Of the tenth amendment,
which reads as follows:
The powers not delegated to the
United States by the Constitution, nor
prohibited by 1t to the States, are re-
served to the States respectively or to
the people.
This, say the six members of the
committee just reporting, was per-
petual guarantee against the delegation
Of powers to the National Government
not already by the Constitution so
granted. without the promise that the
sacred and inviolate rights would be
so safeguarded by immediate amend
ment, the Constitution would never
have been adopted"
It is almost as idle to wrestle with
this strange perversion of logic as it is
for its entertainers to PROFOUND it. The
Supreme Court has, in the light of this
and other arguments against the valid
lty of the eighteenth amendment. upheld
it as part of the fundamental law,
properly written, adopted and ratified.
So the question really is moot one,
however it is framed Yet it is per-
haps interesting to point out the in
consistency and absurdity of the con-
tention that the eighteenth amendment
is invalid because of the implied pledge
Of the tenth amendment to restrain the
Federal Government from any further
assumptions Of power.
An amendment could have been
adopted at any time legally and with
full effect, after the tenth amendment
was proposed, adopted and ratified, re-
pealing that amendment, and without
any breach of pledge. In other words,
the right to amend the Constitution In
any respect by the regularly prescribed
methods is inherent and inviolable.
The thirteenth amendment prohib-
tied slavery or involuntary servitude
within the United States. That was not
one Of the powers already given to the
Federal Government by the pre-tenth
amendment Constitution, The sixteenth
amendment empowered the Congress to
lay and collect taxes on incomes, which
was not one of the powers possessed by
Congress under the Constitution prior
to the adoption of the tenth amend
ment. The nineteenth amendment
guaranteed the right of suffrage to all
citizens regardless of SEX And this was
not power already possessed by Con-
gress or the Federal Government when
the original Constitution was written.
Invalidity on the score Of the viola
ton of the tenth amendment pledge or
guarantee has not. been seriously charged
in the cases Of the thirteenth, sixteenth
and nineteenth amendments. All three
Of those, and the eighteenth as we'll
we're adopted and ratified by the regular
procedure. The New York County law
yers' committee makes its final stand
upon the proposition that the eight
zenith amendment "can confer no
powers on the National Government over
the people or their individual rights I'M
til ratified by the people themselves, as
sembIed in constitutional conventions in
their several States"
It is in vain that one seeks in the
body of the Constitution for any clause
which requires such method of rati-
f1cation.
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