Case: NATIONAL PROHIBITION CASES
Abbreviation: National Prohibition Cases
Decision Date: 1920-06-07
Docket Number: Nos. 29, 30, and Nos. 696, 752, 788, 794, 837
Citation: 253 U.S. 350
Volume: 253
Reporter: United States Reports
Court: Supreme Court of the United States
Jurisdiction: United States
Parties: NATIONAL PROHIBITION CASES.
Judges: 
Pages: 350–411

Head Matter:
NATIONAL PROHIBITION CASES.
ORIGINAL, AND APPEALS PROM THE DISTRICT COURTS OP THE UNITED STATES POR THE DISTRICT OP MASSACHUSETTS, . THE WESTERN DISTRICT. OP KENTUCKY, THE DISTRICT , OP NEW JERSEY, THE EASTERN'DISTRICT OP WISCONSIN, ' AND THE EASTERN DISTRICT OP MISSOURI.
Nos. 29, 30, and Nos. 696, 752, 788, 794, 837.
Original;
Argued March 8, 9, 10, 29, 30, 1920.
Decided June 7, 1920.
The adoption by both houses of Congress, each by a two-thirds vote, ■ of a joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution sufficiently shows that the proposal was deemed necessary by all who voted for it. An express declaration that they regarded it as necessary is not' essential. P. 386.
The two-thirds vote in each house which is required in proposing an ■amendment is a vote of two-thirds of the members present — assuming the presence of a quorum — and not a vote of two-thirds of. the entire membership,, present and absent. Id. Missouri Pacific By. Co. v. Kansas, 248 TJ.'S. 276.
The referendum provisions of state constitutions and statutes cannot be applied, consistently with the Constitution of the United States, in the ratification or rejection of amendments to it. Id. Hawke v. Smith, ante, 221.
The prohibition of the manufacture, sale, transportation, importation and exportation of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes, as embodied in the Eighteenth Amendment, is within the power to amend reserved by Article Y of the Constitution. Id.
That Amendment, by lawful proposal and ratification,' has become a ■ part of the Constitution, and must be respected and given effect the Nsame as other provisions of that instrument. Id.
The first section of the Amendment — the one embodying the prohibition — is operative thrqughout the entire territorial limits of the United States, binds all legislative bodies, courts, public officers and individuals within those limits, and of its own force invalidates every legislative act — whether by Congress, by a state legislature, or by a territorial assembly — which authorizes or sanctions what the section prohibits. Id.
The second section of the Amendment — the one declaring “The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to' enforce this article by appropriate legislation” — does not enable Congress or the several States to defeat or thwart the prohibition, but only to enforce it by appropriate means. P. 387.
The words “concurrent power” in that section do not mean joint power, or require that legislation thereunder by Congress, to be effective, shall be approved or sanctioned by the several States or' any of them; nor do they mean that the power to enforce is divided between Congress and the several States along the lines which separate or distinguish foreign and interstate commerce from intrastate affairs. Id.
The power confided to Congress by that section, while not exclusive, is territorially coextensive with the' prohibition of the first section, embraces manufacture and other iptrastate transactions as well as importation, exportation and interstate traffic, and is in no wise dependent on or affected by action or inaction on the part of the several States or any of them. Id.
That power may be exerted against the disposal for beverage purposes of liquors naanufactured before the Amendment became effective just as it may be against subsequent manufacture for those purposes. In either case it is a constitutional mandate or prohibition that is being enforced. Id.
While there are limits beyond which Congress cannot go in treating beverages as within its power of enforcement, those limits are not transcended by the provision of' the National Prohibition Act-(Title II, § 1), wherein liquors containing as much as one-half of one per cent, of alcohol by volume and fit for use for beverage purposes are treated as within that power. Id. Jacob Ruppert v. Caffey, 251 U. S. 264.
Nos. 29 and 30, Original, bills dismissed; No. 794, reverse^; Nos. 696, 752, 788 (264 Fed. Rep. 186), and 837, affirmed.
The seven cases here given one name for convenient reference involved the validity of the Eighteenth Amendment and of certain general features of the National Prohibition Act designed for its enforcement. They were as follows:
No. 29, Original. State of Rhode Island v. A. Mitchell Palmer, Attorney General, and Daniel C. Roper, Commis-. sioner of Internal Revenue.
Bill dismissed.
No; 30, Original. State of New Jersey v. A. Mitchell Palmer, Attorney General, and Daniel C. Roper, Commissioner of Internal Revenue.
Bill dismissed.
-No. 696. George C. Dempsey v. Thomas J. Boynton, United States Attoméy for Massachusetts, and Andrew J. Casey, Acting Collector of Internal Revenue for Massachusetts. Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the District of Massachusetts.
Decree refusing injunction affirmed.
No. 752. Kentucky Distilleries & Warehouse Company-v. W. V. Gregory, District Attorney for the United States far the Western District of Kentucky, .and Elwood Hamilton, ■Collector of Internal Revenue for the Collection District of Kentucky. Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the Western District of Kentucky.
Decree refusing injunction affirmed.
No. 788. Christian Feigenspan, a corporation, v. Joseph L. Bodine, United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, and Charles V. Duffey, Collector of Internal Revenue of the Fifth District of New Jersey. Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the District of New Jersey.
Decree refusing injunction affirmed.
No. 794. Hiram A. Sawyer, as United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Burt Williams, as Collector of Internal Revenue of the Second District of Wisconsin, and Thomas A. Delaney, as Federal Prohibition Enforcement Director for Wisconsin v. Manitowoc Products Company. Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.
Decree granting injunction reversed.
No. 837. St. Louis Brewing Association, a corporation, v. George H. Moore, Collector of Internal Revenue of the First District of Missouri, Walter L. Hensley, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, and Frank L. Diggs, Prohibition , Agent for the First Internal Revenue District of Missouri.. Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Missouri.
Decree, refusing injunction affirmed.
Mr. Herbert A. Bice, Attorney General of Rhode Island, for the plaintiff in No. 29, Original. Mr. A. A. Capotosto, Assistant Attorney General, was on the briefs. See post, p. 354.
Mr.. Thomas F. McCran, Attorney General of ■ New Jersey, for the plaintiff in No. 30, Original. Mr. Francis H. McGee, Assistant Attorney General, whs on. the briefs. See post, p. 356.
Mr. Patrick Henry Kelley for the appellant in No. 696. See post, p. 357.
Mr. Levy Mayer and Mr. William Marshall Bullitt for the appellant in No. 752. See post, p. 357.
Mr. Elihu Boot and Mr. William D. Guthrie for the appellant in No. 788. Mr. Boberi Crain and Mr. Bernard Hershkopf were on the briefs. See post, pp. 361, 368.
Mr. Balph W. Jackman for the appellee in No. 794. Mr. William H. Austin was on the brief. See post, p. 380.
Mr. Charles A. Houts, Mr. John T. Fitzsimmons and Mr. Edward C. Crow, for the appellant in No. 837, submitted. See post, p. 380.
The Solicitor General and Mr. William L. Frierson, Assistant Attorney Genn”°l cr the United States, for the ■defendants in No. 29,
Original, the appellees in Nos. 752 and 788, and the appellants in No. 794. Mr. Frierson for the defendants in No. 30, Original, and for the appellees in No. 696, The Solicitor General appearing also on the briefs in those cases. The Solicitor General and Mr. Frierson, for the appellees in No. 837, submitted. See post, p. 381.
By leave of court, briefs of amid curiae were filed, viz:
By Mr. Charles E. Hughes, with the attorneys general of numerous States, supporting the motions to dismiss the bill in No. 29, Original, and against the appeal in No. 752; by Mr. Elihu Root with Messrs. William D. Guthrie, Robert Crain and Bernard Hershkopf, supporting the bill in No. 29, Original; by Mr. Alexander Lincoln with Mr. Michael J. Lynch, supporting the bills in Nos. 29 and 30, Original; by Mr. Aaron A. Ferris, supporting the bill in No. 29, Original; by Mr. Wayne B. Wheeler with Messrs. George S. Hobart, G. Rowland Monroe, R. C. Minton, J. A. White, B. W. Hicks, E. L. McIntyre and Walter H. Bender, against the appeals in Nos. 696, 752 and 788, and supporting the appeal in No. 794; and by Mr.. Levi Cooke with Mr. George R. Beneman, supporting the appeal in No. 788.
The chief contentions made in the numerous arguments will be here indicated as fairly as space limits permit— more fully in some of the cases to avoid undue abridgment and repetition in all.
Mr. Rice, for the State of Rhode Island, in No. 29,
Original, confined his argument to the validity of the Amendment. Various objections were stated, the one chiefly elaborated being that the Amendment is an invasion of the sovereignty of the complaining State and her people, not contemplated by the amending clause of the Constitution. The amending power, it was contended, is not a substantive power but a precautionary safeguard inserted incidentally to insure the ends set forth in that instrument against errors and oversights committed in its formation. Amendments, as the term indeed implies, are to be limited to the correction of :such. errors.
The doctrine that any and every change may be introduced in guise of amendment is a novelty subversive of fundamental principles. It would bring about a constitutional revolution, converting the sovereignty of the people into a sovereignty of officials. It would, permit the boundary between federal and state authority, established by the Constitution, to be shifted at will, as officials might be influenced by political cowardice or expediency, and would ultimately reduce the States to mere dependencies of the Federal Government.
All sovereignty resides in the people. The Constitution therefore was submitted for ratification to conventions chosen directly by the people. The possibility of federal encroachment upon state sovereignty was the subject of principal concern when the.Constitution was in process of adoption, and, practically as a part of the process, the first ten amendments were added to prevefit such encroachments. And it was generally understood and agreed that the boundaries set between state and federal powers were fundamental and permanent.
It is "This Constitution” that may be amended. "This Constitution” is not a code of transient laws but a framework of government and an embodiment of fundamental principles. By án amendment, the identity or purpose of the instrument is not to be changed; its defects may be cured, but “This Constitution” must remain. It would be the greatest absurdity to contend that there was a purpose to create a limited government and at the same time to confer upon that government a power to do away with its own limitations. All of -the prior amendments have been declaratory and interpretative or have had relation to a power or to a subject-matter dealt with in the instrument itself. The amending function (under Art. -V) is purely federal. The State is not a party to an amendment and her people do not participate. A legislature in ratifying does not act for the State and cannot limit her ■sovereign powers. A State is bound in respect of sovereign powers only by.the explicit act of her whole people. To be valid, an amendment must have such relation to the general grant of powers and to the scope and purposes of the Constitution as will carry an implication of assent on the part of the people of the United States, springing from their adoption of the Constitution.
In the case of this so-called amendment, the representatives of the people of the United States have attempted, not to amend the Constitution of the United States, but to amend the constitution of every State in the Union. If the amending function is construed as coextensive with absolute sovereignty, then the basis of our political system is no longer the fight of the people of a State to make and alter their constitution, for their political institutions are at the mercy of others and may be changed against their will.
Mr. McCran, for the State of New Jersey, in No. 30,
Original, attacked the Amendment as an invasion of state sovereignty not authorized by the amending clause and as not, properly speaking, an amendment, but legislation, revolutionary in character.
The right to amend the Constitution, in the manner provided by Article V, is a right incident to the powers of the citizens of the United States as distinguished from the right of the citizens of the respective States; no amendment can be made not of right belonging to the citizenship of the United States; all powers not enumerated and not of right belonging to the citizenship of the United States, are reserved to the respective States under Article X, ■including the right to legislate concerning the manufacture, ■ use and sale intrastate of intoxicating liquors.
The Amendment is also invalid because its proposal was ' not affirmatively voted by two-thirds in number of both houses of Congress, and because the proposal did not. on its face disclose that both houses deemed the Amendment necessary.
Three-fourths of the States have not ratified it in the constitutional sense, because, in a number of the States counted, the proposal has been, or is subject to be, referred to the people, in pursuance of their constitutions.
Concurrent power under the Amendment is a power in the Federal Government to enforce it only as it relates to the external concerns of the United States or to the domain of the Federal Government in the regulation of interstate .commerce heretofore recognized, as distinguished from the right of the State of New Jersey to enforce the Amendment intrastate by virtue of the power conferred upon her exclusively under the Amendment.
The National Prohibition Act is not appropriate legislation under the Amendment. It purports to regulate the manufacture, possession, sale and use of beverages which are not intoxicating and of liquor devoted to medicinal. and other non-beverage uses.
Mr. Patrick Henry Kelley, for the appellant in No. 696,
took the ground that the Amendment is not self-executing; that, until it is put in execution in the manner prescribed, the existing laws of the States concerning intoxicating liquors must stand unaffected; and that the only way in which the laws and sovereign powers of the States could be superseded under it would be by legislation enacted by the concurrent power of Congress and the several States in the only maimer provided for such concurrent action, viz., as authorized by Article V of-the Constitution.
Mr. Levy Mayer and Mr. William Marshall Bullitt for the appellant in No. 752:
. The power of “amendment” contained'in Art. V does not authorize the invasion of the sovereign powers expressly reserved to the States and the people by the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, except with the consent of all the States. If it be argued that the expression of one exception in Art. V negatives the possibility of others to be implied, the answer is to be found in the contrary principle of construction applied by this court to Art. I, § 7, in Hollingsworth v. Virginia, 3 Dali. 378, that the existence of one exception to a power does not make the power unlimited in all other respects, but that there may be other, qualifications or exceptions not expressed literally.
If amendment under Art. Y were unlimited, three-fourths of the legislatures would have it in their power to establish a state religion and prohibit free exercise of' other religious beliefs; to quarter a standing army in the houses of citizens; to do away with trial by jury and republican form of government; to repeal the provision for a president; and to abolish this court and with it the whole judicial power vested by the Constitution. See Ableman v. Booth, 21 How. 506, 521; They might form several new States within other States, and, at the same time, form one State by the junction of two or more others (while still giving the old States their equal suffrage in the Senate), and thus concentrate the entire power of the Government in the hands of a few States acting in concert. Indeed/ if such right to amend exists, then the three-fourths required by Art. V can be reduced to a majority or even a minority of the legislatures, or the requirement be dispensed with entirely.
• A construction should be judged by its consequences. The fact that a construction “radically changes the whole theory of the relations of the State and Federal Governments to each other and of both these governments to the peoptó” is an irresistible argument against it, “in the absence of language which expresses such' a purpose too clearly to admit of doubt.” Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 78.
The Ninth and Tenth Amendments must be read, with the whole Constitution, exactly as if they had been a part of it from the outset. Before their adoption they were implied, and, after their adoption, they were, by Art. V, "to all intents and purposes part of this Constitution.” Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee, 1 Wheat. 304, 325; McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 405; Collector v. Day, 11 Wall. 113, 124; Gordon v. United States, 117 U. S. 697, 705; 2 Elliot’s Debates, pp. 435, 436.
. "The power of amending the Constitution was intended to apply to amendments which would modify the mode of carrying into effect the original provisions and powers of the Constitution, but not to enable three-fourths of the States to grasp new power at the expense of any unwilling State.” Curtis, Const. History of the United ' States, vol. 2, p. 160. Every one of the preceding seventeen amendments is concerned with and pertains to "the original provisions and powers of the Constitution.” In addition, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments were the result of the arbitrament of war, and their acceptance by the seceding States was made a condition of their readmission into the Union. .. .
If it be decided that the legislatures of three-fourths of the States may, by ratification, validate any amendment, "the indestructible Union of indestructible States” will turn out to be a mere dream and the States will cease "to be coexistent with the National Government.” Texas v. White, 7 Wall. 700, 725; Lane County v. Oregon, 7 Wall. 71, 76; Railroad Co. v. Peniston, 18 Wall. 5, 31.
It is a well-known and established historical fact that the Constitution was ratified by the original States with the distinct agreement that the Bill of Rights expounded in the first ten amendments would be immediately adopted. The States went into the Union with the understanding that by these amendments the sovereignty of the several States would be perpetually preserved, against all federal encroachments, and no sound reason can be advanced for maintaining that the Ninth and Tenth Amendments did not forever preserve such sovereignty. The powers reserved by those amendments are powers reserved from the operation of Art. Y, as well as from the operation of any other articles'of the Constitution.
Two-thirds of both houses of Congress did not vote to propose the Eighteenth Amendment; and hence, it was never properly submitted to the States for ratification.
The Eighteenth Amendment has not been ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the States. Of the forty-five States which have purported to ratify it, one of them, — Ohio,—has rejected the Amendment by popular vote; and in twelve others petitions for a referendum with respect to the Amendment have been presented, but have not yet been submitted to the electorate. In these States the people have reserved the right to make themselves a part of the “legislature.”
The Eighteenth Amendment, like Art. V, must be construed with the other provisions of the Constitution (.Prout v. Starr, 188 U. S. 537), including the Fifth Amendment, which, being for the security of person and property, should be construed liberally. Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616, 635. The allegations of the bill in this case, which are..admitted, establish that the plaintiff could not possibly have sold its stock of whiskey before the Amendment became effective, and that the demand for non-beverage purposes will be insignificant. To deprive of the power of sale is to take the property itself. Buchanan v. Worley, 245 U. S. 60, 74; United States v. Cress, 243 U. S. 316; United States v. Lynah, 188 U. S. 445; Wynehamer v. People, 13 N. Y. 378, 387, 389, 396, 398. The liquor has therefore been taken by the Government for a pjiblic use, viz., for the protection of the people of the United States froin the alleged evils of the traffic in intoxicating liquors. This court, as is pointed out in HamiU ton v. Kentucky Distilleries & Warehouse Co., 251 U. S. 146, has never held that even statutes passed pursuant to the police power of the State, could be applied to liquor acquired before the enactment of the prohibitory law. One of "the judgments affirmed in Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623, referred to in Ruppert v. Caffey, 251 U. S. at p. 302, was for violation of the act by selling beer acquired before its enactment, but the beer involved was acquired after the enactment of the prohibition amendment to the constitution of Kansas, pursuant to which the law was passed. If an attempt be made to extend the doctrine of the Hamilton Case, supra, so as to hold that the Volstead Act does not appropriate stocks of liquor existing before the Eighteenth Amendment was proposed by Congress, because an insignificant non-beverage use. is still permitted, it is sufficient to call attention to the irreconcilable conflict between such contention and the rule in Buchanan v. Warley, supra. Although the prohibition of a /particular physical use to which property may be put (so long as the possession and title thereto are not interfered with) may under some circumstances not constitute a taking in violation of the Fourteenth Amendipent, even if the monetary value be reduced (Mugler v. Kansas, supra), yet when, as here, the owner of the property is deprived ..of the rights of sale, transportation, and even of possession and usé” (except in a few limited instances) there is a taking of property. The whiskey sought here to be protected was manufactured on the faith of the rules of property established by decisions of this court.
Mr. Root for the appellant in No. 788:
I. The substantive and operative part of the so-called Eighteenth Amendment is contained in its first section; - This provision does not relate to the powers or organization of government, as does an ordinary constitutional provision. On the contrary, it is itself an exercise of the legislative power of government, and a direct act of legislation regulating the conduct of life of the individual. The first question before the court is, therefore, whether Article-V of the Constitution authorizes any amendment which in substance and effect is merely a police regulation or statute.
To uphold such a power of amendment would do violence to what Hamilton (Federalist, No. 22, p. 135, Ford’s ed.) described as “the fundamental maxim of republican government . . . which requires that the sense of the majority should prevail.” If the so-called Eighteenth Amendment be a valid part of the Constitution, its repeal can hereafter be perpetually prevented by a minority, for if but one State more than one-fourth of the States refuse to assent thereto, it is irrepealable. The census of 1910 disclosés that there are in the Union thirteen States whose/ aggregate population does not equal five per cent, of the entire population of the-United States. Consequently, however vast the majority of the population in the future may be who are persuaded' by experience that this direct legislative regulation of their lives and personal habits was or. has become unwise and unnecessary, they will be helpless to change the law if there be dissent on the part of a minority representing only five per cent, of the population or perhaps less.
There is plainly a distinction in this respect between the so-called amendment as adopted and as it would be if it had conferred power upon Congress to prohibit the use of intoxicating liquors. An amendment in the latter form would, it is true, be precisely as irrepealable as the one here in question, but thef conduct of individual life thereunder would at all times be within the control of representatives of the majority of the people. Congress would then have the power to prohibit intoxicants or not, completely or qualifiedly, as it from time to time deemed best; and if the majority of the people then desired prohibition, Congress could respond to their wish; and if, on the other hand, the majority thereafter became persuaded that extreme prohibition was no longer necessary, in that respect also Congress could effectuate the will of the people. In every free government the direct regulation of the lives of the people by legislation should at all times be in the hands of the majority, however the powers of government may be distributed and allocated.
This fundamental consideration differentiates sharply the Eighteenth Amendment from the Thirteenth Amendment, to which the Eighteenth bears a superficial resemblance. As is now universally conceded, slavery w;as the creation of positive law, and it was always unauthorized unless some exercise. of government permitted it. A constitutional declaration that slavery was prohibited, would, therefore, in substance, be only thé withdrawal from every governmental authority of the power to license or permit involuntary servitude. That amendment, consequently, only affected the powers of government, and did not constitute, as does the so-called Eighteenth Amendment, a direct legislative exercise of those powers.
Article Y of the Constitution should not be construed to confer unlimited legislative power upon the amending authorities. To . assume that it does is inconsistent with the plain provision of § 1 of Article I of the Constitution .that “all legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States,” and with the terms of Article V itself, as the proceedings of the Constitutional Convention disclose that the framers themselves understood those terms. The framers undoubtedly regarded the power to amend only as authorizing the inclusion of matter of the same general character as the instrument or thing to be amended; and as all the constitutions of their day Were concerned solely with the distribution and limitation of the powers of government, and not with the direct exercise thereof by the constitution makers themselves, no amendment of the latter sort would have been deemed appropriate or germane by them.
It does not advance the discussion to urge that the people can adopt any amendment' to the Constitution they see fit. No doubt an amendment of any sort could be adopted by the same means as were employed in the adoption of the Constitution itself. In that manner alone do or can the people themselves act. But the amending authorities provided for in Article Y of the Constitution, as clearly appears from the debates in the Constitutional Convention, are only agents of the people and not the people themselves. They must, therefore, act within the authority conferred in Article V, and that authority does not embrace the right under color of amendment to adopt mere sumptuary laws which are not constitutional amendments in truth or essence. The people could by appropriate proceedings amend the Constitution so as to impair such vital rights as freedom of religion, but it is' inconceivable that any such unlimited power has been delegated to the amending agents, who may represent but a minority of the people. The census discloses, that there are three-fourths of the States of the Union whose.total population amounts to less than forty-five per cent, of the people of the United States, and two-thirds of a quorum of both houses of Congress may, therefore, likewise represent only a minority of the population.
Ratification by state legislatures does not as matter of fact provide an opportunity for the people to express their will regarding the proposed Eighteenth Amendrnent as the calling of conventions might have done. Thus, for example, the Missouri legislature ratified it, notwithstanding ah express provision' of the Missouri constitution (Art. II, § 3)" forbidding them so to do, and in Ohio ratification by the legislature was subsequently rejected by the people at the polls, while in other States thé people have been denied all right to have the question of ratification referred to them for approval.
If, as contended by the defendants, the power of amendment vested in Congress and three-fourths of the state legislatures be absolute and unrestricted, then there would be no limitation whatever upon their legislative authority.. They could then by amendment establish a state religion, or oppress or discriminate against any denomination, or authorize the taking away of life, liberty and property, without due process of law, etc., etc. This would destroy the. most essential limitation upon power under the American system of government, which is that the rights of the individual citizen shall be protected by withholding from the legislative function the power to do certain things inconsistent with individual liberty. This was the reason of the irresistible demand for the first ten amendments.
When the Federal Constitution was adopted, the people of practically every State had limited by bills of rights their own governments in their own States, which were composed of men elected by themselves. We are not at liberty to assume that in and by Article V it was contemplated that they were vesting legislative power without limitation in the Congress and the legislatures of three-quarters of the States. For these reasons and others it is submitted that the adoption of the so-called Eighteenth Amendment by the agents of the people was beyond the amending power of such agents and therefore invalid;
II. The Eighteenth Amendment, furthermore, if valid, would tend to undermine a fundamental principle of our federal system. As Chief Justice Chase declared in Texas v. White, 7 Wall. 700, 725, “the Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union, composed of indestructible States.” Manifestly, the federal system of government created in the Constitution contemplated indestructible States — not indestructible geographic units merely, but indestructible self-governing, local sovereign-ties. The establishment of our dual system of government must necessarily imply that neither government shall be permitted to destroy the other, and that the States must be preserved, not as mere electoral and administrative districts of a unified and consolidated national government, but as true local, self-governing sovereigntiés, inviolate and indestructible members of a dual, and not a consolidated, system of government, and with a perma nent and effectual reason for being, namely, the possession of the power and the right to exercise forever the functions of internal and local self-government.
The so-called Eighteenth Amendment directly invades the police powers of the States and directly encroaches upon their right of local self-government. If this amendment be valid, then any amendment which directly impairs the police powers of the States and absolutely withdraws from them their right to local self-government in any important particular, heretofore indisputably a matter of internal concern, must likewise be valid. In other words, if the so-called Eighteenth Amendment be lawful, then the States are not in truth indestructible. It must be manifest that the precedent necessarily erected by a holding that the Eighteenth Amendment is constitutional, would authorize the complete subversion of our dual and federal system of government. It is submitted that the authoiity conferred in Article V to amend the Constitution carries no power to destroy its federal principle in a most fundamental aspect.
The Civii War amendments afford no justification for the Eighteenth Amendment. Their primary purpose was to crystallize into the Constitution some of the essentials of a free republican government, and it was expressly made the constitutional duty of the Federal Government to guarantee to the States such a form of government. This federal duty the Civil War amendments helped to realize; and the fact that, as an incident and indirectly, they interfered.to some extent with the States is of no consequence. They are not like the Eighteenth Amendment, which is germane to no original federal duty, and which directly, primarily and deliberately invades the right of the States to govern themselves.
Mr. Guthrie for the appellant in No. 788:
The-’ correct construction of § 2 of the Eighteenth Amendment required the concurrence of the State of New Jersey in any legislation of Congress regulating internal or intrastate commerce in intoxicating liquors, and conversely required the concurrence of Congress in any legislation of the State regulating interstate or foreign commerco in intoxicating liquors; but that section did not impair or qualify the existing reserved power of the several States independently to regulate their own internal or intrastate commerce or the existing power of Congress to regulate interstate or foreign commerce ór the internal commerce of the District of Columbia, the ■ Territories, or the Insular Possessions.
The prohibition contained in § 1 of the Amendment is self-executing. Civil Rights Cases,- 109 U. S. 3, 20. If the Amendment contained no grant of power of enforcement, Congress would have complete power to enforce the prohibition as it saw fit in interstate or foreign commerce or domestically in the District of Columbia, etc., and the States would have power to enforce it within their respective jurisdictions as to their intrastate or internal commerce. But Congress then would have no power under the Constitution to legislate in respect of the internal commerce of a State even with its consent arid a State could not constitutionally legislate in respect of interstate or foreign commerce without the assent or concurrence of Congress. The second section of the Amendment granted to Congress the additional or supplemental power to authorize federal officers to enter the States and apply and enforce the sanctions of federal or state legislation in respect of their internal affairs provided the State concurred in such legislation, and it granted to the respective States the power to apply and enforce their legislation or the legislation of Congress against interstate and foreign commerce, provided Congress concurred in such state legislation.
This construction would give reasonable scope and effect to § 2 and every word thereof; would be consistent with the plan and provisions of the Constitution as a whole; would recognize the dual sovereignty in our federal system of Nation and State each supreme within its own sphere; would tend to promote cooperation and harmonious, effective, economical and satisfactory enforcement of the prohibition of intoxicating liquors, and would be efficient, conservative and beneficent as a practical method of enforcement. In other words, such a construction would not interfere with the power of Nation or State within their respective and exclusive spheres, would provide for cooperation in enforcement when found desirable, and would make fixed and permanent the constitutional principle and the governmental policy embodied in the acts of Congress known as the Wilson Act of August 8, 1890, the Webb-Kenyon Act of March 1, 1913, and the Reed Amendment of March 3, 1917. Indeed, the learned Assistant Attorney General urged, after referring to the decisions of the court in Clark Distilling Co. v. Western Maryland Ry. Co., 242 U. S. 311, and United States v. Hill, 248 U. S. 420, that § 2 of the Amendment in providing for concurrent power was not revolutionary or an innovation in principle, but made a permanent part of the Constitution the principle upon which these three intoxicating liquor statutes of Congress had been sustained.
Section 2 of the Amendment in providing for concurrent power of enforcement is unique and unprecedented and a departure from the precedents of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. The different form was adopted and submitted to the States for their approval undoubtedly because more likely to be acceptable' if the States were retaining a voice in regulations, affecting their own internal affairs. The controlling inquiry, however, is not so much what Congress itself understood as what the States reasonably understood from the language of the proposed Amendment as submitted by Congress. State v. St. Louis & S. W. Ry. Co., 197 S. W. 1012,1013; Alexander v. People, 7 Colorado, 155,167; White v. Hoyt, 73 N. Y. 505, 511. Did they understand that they were surrendering to Congress their then exclusive legislative power over the internal traffic in intoxicating liquors? Did they understand that they were turning over to Congress practically supreme control over intrastate regulation in all its phases? Would not such a radical and far-reaching surrender and new delegation of power to Congress, in conflict with our traditions and history and our dual system, have readily fouhd apt and direct expression?
Section 1 shows that the controlling thought of Congress was to secure national prohibition; and § 2 shows a purpose to commend this main proposal to the States for their acceptance by assuring them of the least possible interference with their police powers. This would tend to secure ratification when a proposition to. surrender or abdicate their police powers would probably have been rejected. The question, therefore, upon which state legislatures voted was, Shall there be national prohibition without loss of state control over local affairs? The construction now urged by the Government, however, would result practically, in complete loss of state control. Disguise it as they may, the learned counsel for the Government ask the court to give no practical effect whatever to the clause which was the inducement to the States to ratify the proposed prohibition Amendment.
The history of the proposed Amendment in the.Sixty-fifth Congress should be traced and the following facts emphasized, namely, that both houses rejected the form originally proposed which vested power in “the Congress and the several States independently or concurrently to enforce” the proposed Amendment; that the Senate adopted on August 1, 1917, a form limiting the power of. enforcement to Congress alone as in the prior constitutional amendments, that this form was not acceptable to the House, and that the Amendment made by the House and concurred in by the Senate vested in “the Congress and the several States ,. . . concurrent power to enforce.” The significance and effect of this amendment cannot be disregarded unless it is to be held that the change of wording made no change whatever in practical meaning, and that the language of the modification made by the House can be disregarded as of no practical effect whatever notwithstanding “the elementary canon of, construction which requires that effect be given to every word of the Constitution” as declared in Knowlton v. Moore, 178 U. S. 41, 87; and see also Hurtado v. California, 110 U. S. 516, 534; Holmes v. Jennison, 14 Pet. 540, 570-571; United States v. Standard Brewery, Inc., 251 U. S. 210, 218; Schick v. United States, 195 U. S. 65, 68; Newell v. People, 7 N. Y. 9, 97; Cooley’s Constitutional Limitations, 7th ed., p. 92.
Ordinary definitions of the adjective “concurrent” show its current meaning to be “concurring or acting in conjunction; agreeing in the same act, contributing-to the same event or effect; operating with; coincident” (Century Dictionary). See also Webster and Standard Dictionaries. The exact meaning can be determined by a consideration of the subject-matter, probable purpose and context. Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 5 Pet. 1, 19; 1 Story on the Constitution, § 455; Wedding v. Meyler, 192 U. S. 573, 584; In re Mattson, 69 Fed. Rep. 535, 542; Ex parte Desjeiro, 152 Fed. Rep. 1004, 1007; Nielsen v. Oregon, 212 U. S. 315.
For thirty years prior to the framing of the Eightéenth Amendment' there had been a public movement and tendency to* secure cooperation, that is, concurrence, between Nation and State in the regulation and prohibition of intoxicating liquors, as evidenced by the legislation of Congress in the Wilson Act in 1890, the Webb-Kenyon Act in 1913, and the Reed Amendment in 1917. The Wilson Act was based upon the language of this court in Leisy v. Hardin, 135 U. S. 100, 119, which suggested that the States could regulate interstate commerce in intoxicating liquors if Congress assented by appropriate legislation, and the act was upheld upon that theory, not only in respect of interstate commerce, but in respect of foreign commerce as well. In re Bahrer, 140 IT. S. 545; Delamater v. South Dakota, 205 U. S. 93; De Bary v. Louisiana, 227 IT. S.-108. In furtherance of this policy of cooperation and concurrence with the States, which thus began with the Wilson Law in 1890, Congress passed the Webb-Kenyon Law of 1913, and the Reed Amendment of 1917. Vance v. Vandercook Company, 170 U. S. 438; Clark Distilling Co. v. Western Maryland By. Co., 242 U. S. 311; United States v. Hill, 248 U. S. 420. The Chief Justice declared in the Clark Distilling Co. Case that the regulation of intoxicating liquors was “a subject as to which both State and Nation in their respective spheres of authority .possessed supremest authority” and that. "Congress in adopting a regulation had considered the nature and character of our dual system of government, State and Nation, and instead of absolutely prohibiting, had so conformed its regulation as to produce cooperation between the local and national forces of government to the end of preserving the rights of all.” Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 78. Under these acts of Congress • there was no uniformity as to regulation of interstate commerce in intoxicating liquors, for such commerce was subjected to the varying regulations of the respective States.’
The Eighteenth Amendment, therefore, embodied in a permanent constitutional provision a principle that had been judicially sustained as within the scope of the constitutional power of Congress, though not without dissent, in this court and on the part of President Taft and the then Attorney General, and it had been a matter of grave constitutional controversy in Congress and in the forum of public opinion whether the decisions of this court were based on sound reasoning and tenable grounds.
The principal ground upon which the supremacy of the National Prohibition Act was- deduced by the learned court below, even as to intrastate regulation, was that by Article VI the Constitution and all laws and treaties made in pursuance thereof are declared to be the supreme law of the land, anything in any state constitution or statute to the contrary notwithstanding. But Article VI applies and controls only when an act of Congress is passed in pursuance of the Constitution, and if the Eighteenth Amendment requires The concurrence of the State, an act of Congress without such concurrence cannot be said to have been passed in pursuance of the Constitution. Indeed, it should logically and reasonably follow that the ■ insertion of the word “concurrent” in the Eighteenth Amendment was for ' the very purpose of preventing Article VI from operating to make the legislation of Congress supreme and practically exclusive. It begs the whole question to advance Article VI as controlling.
The clause vesting concurrent power cannot mean one thing as . applied to the action of the several States, and quite another and different thing when applied to the action of Congress. It cannot mean that if there be conflict, the action of Congress must control, for that would plainly be to say that the power of the States was not concurrent, but subordinate, and, in practical effect, no power at all. Wedding v. Meyler, 192 U. S. 573, 584; Nielsen v. Oregon, 212 U. S. 315; In re Mattson, 69 Fed. Rep. 535, 542; Ex parte Desjeiro, 152 Fed. Rep. 1004, 1007; Houston v. Moore, 5 Wheat. 1, 22; Passenger Cases, 7 How. 282, 395, 396,399. If, therefore, the clause in question does not authorize the States to invade the field of federal jurisdiction, i. e., interstate and foreign commerce, without the concurrence of Congress, it would be illogical to argue that it authorized Congress to invade the field of state jurisdiction without the concurrence of the States.
It is not contended by the appellant that Congress and the several States must adopt identical or practically identical enforcement measures, or that any enforcement act adopted by one must be wholly inoperative if not adopted by the other. But it is assumed that no unnecessary fundamental change' in the federal system and its controlling and vivifying spirit, was intended or contemplated, that the Nation and the State were to continue supreme and independent each within its own historic and constitutional sphere, that no undue interference of one with the other was intended, and that additional or supplemental power was being granted to both, which would authorize each to enter the sphere of the other provided the latter concurred; in other words, cooperated by concurring.
The appellant further contends that Title II of the National Prohibition Act is unconstitutional in certain particulars because not appropriate legislation and because it contains arbitrary and oppressive provisions depriving persons of their property rights without due process of law.
It is conceded of record by the Government and not challenged in its argument that the definition contained in § 1 of Title II of the National Prohibition Act includes beverages which are as matter of fact non-intoxicating. The prohibition of the Eighteenth Amendment, however, is expressly limited to intoxicating liquors.
The power of Congress in peace times to enforce the specific prohibition of intoxicating liquors is not as broad and comprehensive as the police powers of the States. The case of Ruppert v. Caffey, 251 U. S. 264, does not hold otherwise. The court was then dealing solely with the war power of Congress, which is the highest attribute of governmental sovereignty, and the comparison in the opinion in that cáse with the state police power as an analogy was merely to illustrate freedom 'from restraint.
Incidental power to enforce a grant of power to Congress cannot be used to enlarge and expand the grant itself — particularly when to allow it would impinge upon the reserved powers of the States. Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3. The mere fact that the prohibition of nonintoxicating beverages may in the judgment of Congress tend to aid and render more effective the enforcement of prohibition against intoxicating liquors is ' insufficient. United States v. Dewitt, 9 Wall. 41; Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3; Hodges v. United States, 203 U. S. 1; Hammer v. Dagenhart, 247, U. S. 251.
The first section of Title II of the National Prohibition Act plainly purports to constitute no more than a definition of the term “intoxicating liquors” as used in the Eighteenth Amendment. It was enacted as and for' a definition, and that is its declared intent. The provision might not have been enacted had its wording been changed so as to declare that it was in truth not a definition at all, but was being inserted in the act because/it wás believed to .be advisable to include non-intoxicating liquors in order more effectively to' enforce the prohibition against intoxicating /liquors. The definition of an intoxicating liquor is one distinct and concrete idea and intent; the banning of non-intoxicating liquors as an incidental measure of enforcement is quite a different idea and intent.
No more objectionable or dangerous doctrine could be imagined than that an enactment, clearly avowed and intended to be a definition of a constitutional term and having in view solely that purpose and end, can be sustained as an exercise of a very different power and intent having in view a different end and supported by entirely different considerations — an intent and purpose'that may not have been in the minds of Congress at the time. Such a practice, if tolerated, would enable the courts to attribute to a statute a meaning and effect not, at all contemplated or understood by those who enacted it, and possibly in conflict with their actual intent.
It may be proper, in reviewing state legislation which has been upheld by a state court as within the legislative powers of a State, for this court to attribute the intent as found by the state court, and not at all permissible to attribute an intent not expressed in the case of a provision in an act of Congress purporting on its face solely to be a definition and passed in the exercise of a distinctly limited power of legislation — as here limited , to intoxicating liquors. Congress is always exercising delegated, limited,, circumscribed and enumerated powers, and not the broad and elastic police powers of a State.
The Eighteenth Amendment must be read in connection with the Tenth Amendment. It could not have been intended by the use of the phrase “appropriate legislation ” to authorize Congress to construe a prohibition limited to intoxicating liquors as including authority to regulate the vast field of non-intoxicating beverages, which the Amendment itself had left unprohibited and therefore free for state regulation.
Sixty years of regulation by Congress of the alcoholic content of beverages has demonstrated that adequate provisions for licensing and supervising the production of non-intoxicating malt or vinous liquors at the breweries or places of manufacture, and for licenses, stamps, labels and inspection certificates before shipment, could easily have been framed, as was done in respect of analogous subjects in the Food and Drug Act of Congress of June 30, 1906; the Meat Inspection Act of March 4, 1907; the Insecticide Act of April 26, 1910; the Plant Quarantine Act of August 20, 1912; the Pure Seed Act of August 24, 1912, and the Grain Standards Act of August 11,1916.
If non-intoxicating beer, ale and porter may be prohibited, and even the use of their names made a criminal offense, because they look like intoxicating liquor, then grape juice, which looks like many kinds of wine, and syruped soda-water, nearly all the varieties of which look like some species of intoxicating liquors, may also be prohibited. It ifiay be properly mentioned in this connection as a reductio ad dbsurdum that water looks like gin! It seems to be urged that it is merely a question of degree of regulation, and that the court ought not to override the judgment of Congress on any question of degree in the exercise of its constitutional powers. But the court is constantly called upon to determine just such questions of degree.
The case of Purity Extract Co. v. Lynch, 226 U. S. 192, principally relied on by the Government, is readily distinguishable if it be borne in mind that the state legislation then in question was enacted in the exercise of the unlimited police power of the State and that, the legislation had been sustained by the highest court of the State as not prohibited by the state constitution,
The^definition of intoxicating liquors as those containing one-half of one per cent, or more by volume of alcohol is arbitrary and contrary to conceded facts. This standard of alcoholic content originated for purposes of federal internal revenue taxation in connection with the Civil War Revenue Act of July 13, 1866, 14 Stat. 164, § 48, and was first adopted by the Treasury Department as a test of what should be deemed “fermented liquors” under taxing statutes. Treasury Decision Special No. 102, May 17, 1871; T. D. No. 804, June 29, 1904; T. D. No. 892, April 26, 1905; T. D. No. 1307, February 5, 1908; T. D. No. 1360, May 19,1908; T. D. No. 2354, August 2, 1916; United States v. Standard Brewery, 251 U. S. 210, 219; P. O. Department Liquor Bulletin No. 2, June 15, 1917. States adopted the same standard as a matter of practical, convenient and economical administration. See, e. g., New York Liquor Tax Law, §.2, subd. 6; Revised Code .of Delaware, c. .6, Art. 11, § 137; Oregon General Laws of 1905, c. 2, § 18; Oklahoma Constitution, Prohibition Amendment of 1907. As state legislatures could, if they saw fit, prohibit not only intoxicating liquors but liquors containing no alcohol at all (Purity Extract' Co. v. Lynch, 226 U. S. 192), the present question could not arise.
The definition of an intoxicating, liquor contained in. § 1 of Title II of the National Prohibition Act is conceded on the record to be arbitrary and false, and it is not even attempted to be uphéld as a definition. As declared by this court in Eisner v. Macomber, 252 U. S. 189, Congress cannot by any definition conclude the matter,- since it cannot by legislation alter the Constitution or add to its powers. The authority conferred by the Amendment is not as to liquor in general but only as to “intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes.” If Congress can under the guise of a definition or of appropriate enforcement legislation forbid the manufacture and sale of non-intoxicants as a State may under the doctrine of the Purity Extract Co. Case, it can likewise, under the plea that it deems it necessary, forbid the manufacture and sale of any liquor whatever, whether alcoholic or not, for medicinal, industrial, or sacramental purposes; for if one qualifying and limiting term, i. e., “intoxicating,” can be disregarded, the other qualifying term of the same nature and of no higher obligation, may also be deleted. Such a method of construing a constitutional provision is condemned by settled canons of constitutional interpretation, and more important still is the fact that it would violate fundamental principles of honesty and good faith in public affairs.
Mr. Jackman for the appellee in No. 794, advanced the following propositions:
Neither Congress nor the several States have power to define “intoxicating liquor ” under the Eighteenth Amendment.
Congress cannot under the enforcement clause enlarge the express grant of power so as to include beverages, non-intoxicating in fact.
The State of. Wisconsin having, under the pow;er reserved and granted it by the Amendment, enacted legislation to enforce the prohibition, and not having concurred in the later congressional legislation, the act of Congress cannot be enforced and the state law overridden as to strictly intrastate transactions.
The Amendment is void because (a) it is not an amendment within the meaning of Article Y, (b) it violates the Tenth Amendment.'
Messrs. Houts, Fitzsimmons and Crow, for the appellant in No. 837, submitted, on the following main propositions;
The Amendment has not been ratified by three-fourths of the.States.
It is invalid as an amendment, leading to the destruction of the system of dual sovereignties, and also as an attempt to exercise ordinary legislative power.
Under § 2 of the Amendment concurrence of the State is . necessary to render the act of Congress effective as to internal transactions.
The National Prohibition Act is not appropriate legislation under the Amendment. (For the reasons stated in the other cases.)
•. The Amendment destroys appellant’s property, existent before its adoption, and is therefore unconstitutional.
Argument of The Solicitor General and Mr. Assistant Attorney General Frierson:
The bills filed by the States of Rhode Island and New Jersey can not be maintained. They seek to enjoin officers of the Federal Government from enforcing criminal laws enacted by Congress. The sole ground upon which the original jurisdiction of this court can be invoked is that they involve controversies between a State and the citizens of other States. The fact that a State assumes to sue and names as defendants citizens of other States is not conclusive that this court must take jurisdiction. The judicial power of the United States over controversies to which a State is a party extends only to those cases “in which a State may, of right, be made a party defendant, as well as in all cases in which a State may, of right, institute a suit in a court of the’ United States.” United States v. Texas, 143 U. S. 621, 644; Wisconsin v. Pelican Insurance Co., 127 U. S. 265. A State can not invoke judicial action by making the case of its citizens its own and thus suing in vindication of grievances of particular individuals. New Hampshire v. Louisiana, 108 U. S. 76; South Dakota v. North Carolina, 192 U. S. 286; Louisiana v. Texas, 176 U. S. 1, 16, 24-25.
The questions as to whether the Eighteenth Amendment is of such a nature as to be within the amending power provided by Article Y of the Constitution, and whether the Eighteenth Amendment has, in fact, been ratified, are questions committed by the Constitution to the political branch and not to the judicial branch of the Government. Luther v. Borden, 7 How. 42-43, 45; Pacific Telephone Co. v. Oregon, 223 U. S. 118; Mississippi v. Johnson, 4 Wall. 475; Georgia v. Stanton, 6 Wall. 50; Field v. Clark, 143 U. S. 649, 680; Harwood v. Wentworth, 162 U. S. 547, 562; Flint v. Stone Tracy Co., 220 U. S. 107, 143; Myers v. Anderson, 238 U. S. 368, 373-374; 15 Stat. 707-711.
The Eighteenth Amendment, establishing a fundamental rule of law, is an amendment within the meaning of Article Y of the Constitution. ‘The Constitution and the amendments heretofore adopted are full of rules of law by which the activities of the various agencies of government, both state and federal, and the rights and duties of persons are fixed or regulated. The Thirteenth Amendment, particularly, is almost an exact prototype of the Eighteenth Amendment and operates upon individuals in the same way. It has always been understood that there is no limitation upon the character of amendments which may be adopted, except such limitations as are imposed by Article V itself. Washington’s Writings, vol. XII, pp. 4-5, 222. With these specific limitations, whatever amendments or changes Congress may deem necessary to propose are incorporated in the Constitution if ratified in the manner provided by Article V. Gales and Seaton, Annals' of Congress, vol. 1, p. 712.
The fact that the Eighteenth Amendment confers upon Congress a power which had previously belonged exclusively to the States does not prevent that Amendment from being within the amending power conferred by Article Y of the Constitution. A provision to the effect that no State should, without its consent, “be affected in its internal police ” by an-amendment to the Constitution was twice proposed in the Convention-and twice rejected. Elliot’s Debates/vol. 1, pp. 316-317; Madison’s Papers, pp. 531-532, 551-552. In scope, the amending power is now limited as to but one subject, namely, the equal representation of the Statés in the Senate. Willoughby on th& Constitution, § 227. Many of the amendments heretofore adopted have taken away from the States powers previously reserved to them. This is particularly true of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Minor v. Happersett, 21 Wall. 162, 172.
No State by any provision of its laws or its constitution can make the ratification of an amendment to the Constitution of the United States by its legislature subject to a referendum vote of the people. The only method of ratification mentioned in the Constitution is through representatives assembled either in the legislature or a convention called for that purpose. It is clearly contemplated that the action of the State in ratifying shall not be by direct vote of the people but by their representatives, and the body, or bodies, who shall be recognized as acting ■for the States are specifically named. A legislature in ratifying an amendment, therefore, derives its power not from the State or the people of the State but from the people of the United States through the Constitution of the United States. This power can not be abrogated, limited, or restricted by any state statute or constitution, Dodge v. Woolsey, 18 How. 331, 348; McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U. S. 1, 34; Gales and Seaton, Annals of Congress, vol. 1, p. 716; Davis v. Ohio, 241 U. S. 565.
The Volstead Act, if otherwise constitutional, is effective in all the States without the concurrence of any state legislature. The effect of § 2 of the Eighteenth Amendment, providing that Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce the Amendment by appropriate legislation, enables Congress and the several state legislatures to enact such laws as they deem necessary to suppress the liquor traffic — the laws of Congress to be enforced through the courts of the United States, and the laws of each State to be enforced through its own courts. The provision is not that legislation shall be concurrent, but that the concurrent power to legislate shall exist. Congress and the several state legislatures may, therefore, legislate for the accomplishment of the same purpose, but independently of each other. Fox v. Ohio, 5 How. 410, 418, 432; Houston v. Moore, 5 Wheat. 1, 47; Prigg v. Pennsylvania, 16 Pet. 536, 621; Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 209; Covington, etc., Bridge Co. v. Kentucky, 154 U. S. 204, 209, 211; Passenger Cases, 7 How. 282, 396; United States v. Marigold, 9 How. 559.
In order to enforce, with any degree of efficiency, the Eighteenth Amendment, a definition- of intoxicating liquor was essential. The definition provided by the Volstead Act includes nothing which Congress could not properly deem necessary to enforce the provisions of the Amendment, and therefore is not arbitrary. Crane v. Campbell, 245 U. S. 304, 308; Purity Extract Co. v. Lynch, 226 U. S. 192; Ruppert v. Caffey, 251 U. S. 264..
The fact that by the passage of the Volstead Act on October 28, 1919, and the going into effect of the second title of that act and the Eighteenth Amendment on January 16, 1920, the sale of non-intoxicating beer containing as much as one-half of one per centum of alcohol was prohibited by the War Prohibition Act does not render Title II of the Volstead Act invalid, even as to the sale of such beer lawfully manufactured before October 28, 1919. Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623; Hamilton v. Kentucky Distilleries & Warehouse Co., 251 U. S. 146, 156-157; Ruppert v. Caffey, 251 U. S. 264.
The fact that the Amendment does not provide compensation for liquors previously manufactured does not render it invalid.
Journal of Constitutional Convention of 1787, pp. 370, 70; 3 Documentary History of U. S. Constitution, pp. 405, 409, 410, 518; McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 403, 407; Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 389; State ex rel. Mullen v. Howell, 107 Washington, 167; Opinion of the Justices, 118 Maine, 544; Federalist, No. 33 (Ford’s ed.),. pp. 202, 260, 263; 2 Elliot’s Debates, pp. 126, 128, 364; 4 id., pp. 144, 176, 188; 1 Bryce’s American Commonwealth, p. 350; Story on the Constitution, 5th ed., § 352; Cooley on Constitutional Limitations, 7th ed., pp. 2-4, 50; Jameson on Constitutional Conventions, 4th ed., §§ 63, 85; Vanhorne’s Lessee v. Dorrance, 2 Dali. 304, 308; Century-Dictionary, tit. “Constitution”; Encyclopasdia Britannica (9th ed.), tit. “Constitution”; Holland’s Jurisprudence, 11th ed., p. 365; The Constitutional Review, April, 1918, p. 97; Mass. Law Quarterly, May, 1918, p. 334; Southern Pac. Co. v. Jensen, 244 U. S. 205, 227; Federalist, No. 15 (Ford’s ed.), p. 87; Marburyv. Madison, 1 Cranch, 137,176; In re Pennsylvania Tel. Co., 2 Chester Co. Rep. 129; 5 Hinds’ Precedents, §§5753, 5767; Gagnon v. United States, 193 U. S. 451, 457; Shields v. Barrow, 17 How. 130, 144; Federalist No. 43 (Ford’s ed.), p. 291; id., No. 85, p. 586; 3 Elliot’s Debates, pp. 233-4; Commonwealth v. Griest, 196 Pa. St. 396, 404; Warfield v. Vandiver, 101 Md. 78; Livermore v. Waite, 102 Cal. 113,118,119; Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat: 1,187,188; Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 386, 388; Fletcher v. Peek, 6 Cranch, 87, 139; Loan Association v. Topeka, 20 Wall. 655, 663; Murphy v. Ramsey, 114 U. S. 15, 44; Collector v. Day, 11 Wall. 113,127; Hollingsworth v. Virginia, 3 Dali. 378; Madison's Notes, Sept. 12,1787, p. 720, Legal Tender Cases, 12 Wall. 457; Texas v. White, 7 Wall. 700, 720, 724; Sturges. v. Crowninshield, 4 Wheat. 122, 192; 3 Elliot’s Debates, pp. 446-7; Somerset v. Stewart, 20 State Trials, 1, 82; 2 Mass. Law Quarterly, pp. 437-44; Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall, 36, 67, 68.
McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 327, 403, 431; Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 389; Texas v. White, 7 Wall. 700, 725, 728; Hammer v. Dagenhart, 247 U. S. 251,275; Gordon v. United States, 117 U. S. 697, 701, 705; Rathbone v. Wirth, 150 N. Y. 459, 470, 483-4; Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 386, 388; Loan Association v. Topeka, 20 Wall. 655,662-3; Veazie Bank v. Fenno, 8 Wall. 533, 541; Collector v. Day, 11 Wall. 113, 124, 125, 127; Downes v. Bidwell, 182 U. S. 244, 290-1; Murphy v. Ramsey, 114 U. S. 15, 44; Matter of Fraser v. Brown, 203 N. Y. 136,143 Keller v. United States, 213 U.S.138,148; Colon v. Disk, 153 N. Y. 188, 194; Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat. 419, 439; Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3, 11-15, 19, 20; In re Rahrer, 140 U. S. 545, 554-6; Matter of Heff, 197 U. S. 488, 505; South Carolina v. United States, 199 U. S. 437, 448,451, 453-4; State ex rel. Mullen v. Howell, 107 Washington, 167; License Cases, 5 How. 504, 583, 628; Noble State Bank v. Haskell, 219 U. S. 104, 111; Sligh v. Kirkwood, 237 U. S. 52,59; Ives v. South Buffalo R. Co., 201 N. Y. 271, 300; Patterson v. Kentucky, 97 U. S. 501, 503; Fertilizing Co. v. Hyde Park, id., 659, 667; Ex parte Rowe, 4 Ala. App. 254; Stone v. Mississippi, 101 U. S. 814, 819-20; N. Y. & N. E. R. R. Co. v. Bristol, 151 U. S. 556, 567; Atlantic Coast Line R. R. Co. v. Goldsboro, 232 U. S. 548,558; 2 Hare on American Constitutional Law, p. 766; Cooley on Constitutional Limitations (7th ed.), pp. 101-2, 243, 263; Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 4 Wheat. 518, 629; Lane County v. Oregon, 7 Wall. 71,76; Ex parte Bain, 121 U. S. 1,12; Story on the Constitution, § 1908; Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 67, 68, 70-1, 77-8; Northern Securities Co. v. United States, 193 XJ. S„ 197,348; Kentucky v. Dennison,24 How. 66,107; Guinn v. United States, 238 U. S. 347,362; United States v. Railroad Co., 17 Wall.322,327 Pollock v.Farmers’ Loan & Tr. Co., 157 U.S. 429,584; Congressional Globe,38th Cong., 1st sess., p. 2985; Elliot’s Debates, vol. II, pp. 304, 309; vol. IV, pp. 53, 58; 2 Curtis on the Constitutional History of the United States, pp. 160-1; Miller on the Constitution, pp. 24, 412; 1 Tucker on the Con stitution, pp. 323-4; United States v.Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, 552, 554, 555; Wilkinson v. Leland, 2 Pet. 627, 647, 657; State v. Keith, 63 N. Car. 140, 144; Eason v. State, 11 Ark. 481, 491; Coyle v. Oklahoma, 221 U. S. 559, 580; 2 Madison’s Notes (Farrand), pp. 629-31; Maxwell v. Dow, 176 U. S. 581, 601-2; State v. St. Louis & S. W. Ry. Co., 197 S.W. 1012,1013 (Tex.); Alexander v. People, 7 Colo. 155,167; Federalist (Ford’s ed.), Nos. 39 and 43, pp. 251, 291-2; Spies v. Illinois, 123 U. S. 131,161; Barron v. Baltimore, 7 Pet. 243,250; Minn. & St. Louis R. R. v. Bombolis, 241 U. S. 211, 217; Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U. S. 27, 31; Bartemeyer v. Iowa, 18 Wall. 129, 138; Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623, 663; In re Kemmler, 136 U. S. 436,448,449; Stewart v. Kahn, 11 Wall.. 493, 507; Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393; Cong. Globe, 39th Congress, 1st sess., pt. 3, p. 2766; id., pt. 4, p. 2961.

Opinion:
Mr. Justice Van Devanter
announced the conclusions of the court.
Power to amend the Constitution was reserved by Article V, which reads:
"The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legisla tures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three' fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that ho State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate."
The text of the Eighteenth Amendment, proposed by Congress in 1917 and proclaimed as ratified in 1919, 40 Stat. 1050, 1941, is as follows:
"Section 1. After one year from- the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of. intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.
"Sec. 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."
We here are concerned with seven cases involving the validity of that Amendment and of certain general features of the National Prohibition Law, known as the Volstead Act, c. 83, 4Í Stat. 305, which was adopted to enforce the Amendment. The relief sought in each case is an injunction against the execution of that act. Two of the cases —Nos. 29 and 30, Original, — were brought in this court, and the others in district courts. Nos. 696, 752, 788 and 837 are here on appeals from decrees refusing injunctions, and No. 794 from a decree granting an injunction. The cases have, been elaborately argued at the bar and in printed briefs; and the arguments have been attentively considered, with the result that we reach and announce the following conclusions on the questions involved:
1. The adoption by both houses of Congress, each by a two-thirds vote, of a joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution sufficiently shows that the proposal was deemed necessary by all who voted for it. An . express declaration that they regarded it as necessary is not essential. None of the resolutions whereby prior amendments were proposed contained such a declaration.
2. The two-thirds vote in each house which is required in proposing an amendment is a vote of two-thirds of the members present — assuming the presence of a quorum— and not a vote of two-thirds of the entire membership, present and absent. Missouri Pacific Ry. Co. v. Kansas, 248 U. S. 276.
3. The referendum provisions of staté constitutions and statutes cannot be applied, consistently with the Constitution of "the United States, in the ratification or rejection of amendments to it. Hawke v. Smith, ante, 221, *
4. The prohibition of the manufacture, sale, transportation, importation and exportation of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes, as embodied in the Eighteenth Amendment, is within the power to amend reserved by Article Y of the Constitution.
. 5. That Amendment, by lawful proposal and ratification, has become a part of the Constitution, and must be respected and given effect the same as other provisions of that instrument.'
6. The first section of the Amendment — the.one embodying the prohibition — is operative throughout the entire territorial limits of the United States, binds all legislative bodies, courts, public officers and individuals within those limits, and of its own force invalidates every legislative act- — whether by Congress, by a state legislature, or, by a territorial assembly — which authorizes or sanctions what the section prohibits.
7. The second section of the Amendment — the one declaring "The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation " — does not enable Congress or the several , States to defeat or thwart the prohibition, but only to enforce it by appropriate means. i
8. The words " concurrent power " in that section do not mean joint power, or require that legislation thereunder by Congress, to be effective, shall be approved or sanctioned by the several States or any of them; nor do they mean that the power to,enforce is'divided between Congress and the several States along the lines which separate or distinguish foreign and interstate commerce from intrastate affairs.
9. The power confided to Congress by that section, while not exclusive, is territorially coextensive with the prohibition-of the first section, embraces manufacture and other intrastate transactions as well as importation, exportation and interstate traffic, and is in no wise dependent on or affected by action or inaction on the part of the several States or any of them.
10. That power may be exerted against the disposal for beverage purposes of liquors manufactured before the Amendment became effective just as it may be against subsequent manufacture for those purposes. 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 .limit® are not transcended by the provision of the Volstead Act (Title II, § 1), wherein liquors containing as much as one-half of one per cent, of alcohol by volume and fit for use for beverage purposes are treated as within that power. Jacob Ruppert v. Caffey, 251 U. S. 264.
Giving effect to these conclusions, we dispose of the cases as follows:
In Nos. 29 and SO, Original, the bills áre dismissed.
In No. 794 the decree is reversed.
In Nos. 696, 752, 788 and 8S7 the decrees are affirmed.