CHAPTER XVIII.

NATIONAL PROHIBITION.

No other Form of Real Prohibition Possible-Control the Traffic from Origin to End-Necessity of Exerting the National Power - National Prohibition the Plan of Battle- Prohibition Amendment to National Constitution Presented in 1876-Its Provisions Noted-The Subject Discussed from the National Stand-point-Manufacture as well as Sale must be Prohibited - The Temperance Reform most needs Nationalization-Concentrate on National Prohibitory Amendment to Constitution--Right and Necessity of National Legislation Discussed-The Amendment Reviewed-State Prohibition and National Prohibition Together-National Prohibitory Amendment should be the Preliminary Bunker Hill, not the Crowning Yorktown.

I

HAVE elsewhere endeavored to show that government should take jurisdiction of the liquor traffic and that prohibition is the only effective way in which that jurisdiction can be asserted.

Assuming, for the purposes of the argument, that law should prohibit the traffic, I desire, in this chapter, to call attention to the necessity and to the proper method of national action, if any essential or permanent reform is to be effected through the agency of law.

No other form of real prohibition is possible. No pronibitory law now exists or ever has existed in this country. None has existed or does exist or can exist in any State. No prohibitory law has failed to prohibit, for there can be no prohibitory law taking jurisdiction of the liquor traffic unless it controls it from origin to end-from the point of its manufacture, or wherever it comes within our borders, and so through all the channels of distribution to the stomach of the consumer. Now, it is a fact that from the foundation of the national government until to-day it has not only permitted, but has fostered and protected the traffic in alcoholic liquors.

The Constitution, as construed, is for the traffic, and the laws are made and enforced in pursuance of the Constitution.

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I am not now referring to the comparatively unimportant power of Congress over the Territories and the District of Columbia, which may affect one-fortieth of our people; but to the relation of the Constitution and the laws to the traffic in the States where the mass of the people are who are ruined by it.

Our government is not only peculiar in this that it is republican in form, but especially so in the distribution of its powers. Such, indeed, have been the origin, growth and final combination of our institutions that we hardly conceive of the government in its true nature. From the force of habits of thought, and forms of action and of expression which we continually use and witness, we come to believe that we live under two distinct governments at the same time, which is an impossibility.

We speak of the national government and of the State government. Neither is the government. Each is a department or branch of the government, which comprises them both, and by the union of both is itself one. The American people are a unit, a nation, and that people is the great fact behind both State and national or general forms, who create both, each with separate, generally independent but sometimes concurrent powers. As the people are one people, so the State and the national branches spring, not either from the other, but from the same root, and are one tree. Both combined have only the same powers which the English Parliament possesses alone. The powers of government being divided between these national and State branches, there are some things which each can perform fully without the co-operation of the other. There are other things which, from their nature, require the action of the government itself, as a whole, acting by and through both State and national forms. The one has general jurisdiction of local interests, the other of the interests of individuals and of the States in their larger relations and with other sovereignties. Yet the relation of the individual is direct to each branch of the government in its proper sphere. This peculiarity may be, in some respects, a weakness, but, on the whole, although it may diminish velocity, it increases strength, and is the very citadel of our liberties. If, then, there be an interest

or an evil which is everywhere, and which exists and is felt by each individual and by the people as a whole, in all the States and Territories of the republic, which is, in short, national, that interest or that evil is sure to require the protection, regulation or prohibition of the whole power of the people, exerted through both the State and national divisions of the one government.

Such an interest, if it be an interest, or such an evil, if it be an evil, is the liquor traffic.

It is already conceded that the States may regulate, license or prohibit, within their own jurisdiction, the manufacture and sale of liquors for home consumption, not interfering with it when coming within their borders from other domestic or foreign States while it remains and, it is intended that it shall remain, in the original packages.

It is, then, the special purpose of this chapter to discuss the necessity of the assertion of national power, concurrent with that of the States, for the extirpation of the traffic, if it is ever to be extirpated, and the enlargement of the national powers by amendment of the national Constitution, so that the whole people shall summarily and forever dispose of the evil, without waiting for the tardy action or stubborn resistance of adverse localities.

In my humble judgment, the temperance reform waits on the comprehension of this thought, and will practically fail until national prohibition is adopted as the plan of battle.

Before proceeding to a more general discussion of the subject of national prohibition, there should be a word of explanation upon the forms which the proposition has hitherto assumed. The first proposition for the amendment of the national Constitution so as to prohibit the traffic in intoxicating beverages, so far as I have knowledge, was introduced by myself in the House of Representatives, December 27, 1876. The joint resolution was in the following words and was supported by a speech of considerable length. I have introduced this resolution in every succeeding Congress, and it was favorably reported to the Senate by the Committee on Education and Labor of the 49th Congress. This resolution proposes an absolute affirmative prohibition by the nation of the traffic in distilled alcoholic

NATIONAL PROHIBITORY AMENDMENT.

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beverages from and after the year 1900, while the fermented drinks are left to the regulation of the States, with an enlargement of the powers of the States so as to give to them absolute control of the traffic in fermented drinks within their own jurisdiction, free from the protection which the national government now extends to it in the regulation of commerce and by the exercise of other powers, thus practically preventing the exercise of the police power by the State against the evil even when prohibition is attempted by the State.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following amendment to the Constitution be, and hereby is, proposed to the States, to become valid when ratified by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, as provided in the Constitution:

ARTICLE -.

SECTION 1. From and after the year of our Lord 1900 the manufacture and sale of distilled alcoholic intoxicating liquors, or alcoholic liquors any part of which is obtained by distillation or process equivalent thereto, or any intoxicating liquors mixed or adulterated with ardent spirits, or with any poison whatever, except for medicinal, mechanical, chemical and scientific purposes, and for use in the arts, anywhere within the United States and the Territories thereof, shall cease; and the importation of such liquors from foreign states and countries to the United States and Territories, and the exportation of such liquors from and the transportation thereof within and through any part of this country, except for the use and purposes aforesaid, shall be, and hereby is, forever thereafter prohibited.

SEC. 2. Nothing in this article shall be construed to waive or abridge any existing power of Congress, nor the right, which is hereby recognized, of the people of any State or Territory to enact laws to prevent the increase and for the suppression or regulation of the manufacture, sale and use of liquors, and the ingredients thereof, any part of which is alcoholic, intoxicating or poisonous, within its own limits, and for the exclusion of such liquors and ingredients therefrom at any time, as well before as after the close of the year of our Lord 1900; but until then, and until ten years after the ratification hereof, as provided in the next section, no State or Territory shall interfere with the transportation of said liquors or ingredients, in packages safely secured, over the usual

lines of traffic to other States and Territories wherein the manufacture, sale and use thereof for other purposes and use than those excepted in the first section shall be lawful: Provided, That the true destination of such packages be plainly marked thereon.

SEC. 3. Should this article not be ratified by three-fourths of the States on or before the last day of December, 1890, then the first section hereof shall take effect and be in force at the expiration of ten years from such ratification; and the assent of any State to this article shall not be rescinded nor reversed.

SEC. 4. Congress shall enforce this article by all needful legislation.

The prohibitory sentiment of the country demands that the national Constitution be so amended as to include the absolute inhibition of fermented, as well as of distilled beverages, and the astonishing development and great evils of the use of fermented drinks, and the ease with which they are now fortified with pure alcohol and other drugs and poisons until the distinction between distilled and fermented liquors is lost, justify this demand of the earnest friends of prohibition. In unity there is strength, and so far as I can I shall contribute to that end by supporting the more comprehensive restriction of this nefarious trade. A successful result may or may not be longer delayed, but there will be at least unity of action, without which no progress whatever will be made. In the advocacy of the original amendment I have given my reasons for the form in which the proposition was made. I had hope of its earlier adoption in that form, and that from its success would follow the destruction of the trade in fermented as well as in distilled drinks. If experience shall vindicate the correctness of that judgment, no one will regret it more than myself. In the 50th Congress I shall introduce the proposed amendment for the absolute prohibition by the nation of the traffic in all forms of alcoholic beverages, and trust that a long-suffering people will rise in their might for its adoption, and for the rescue of our civilization from the monster's grasp. Let us now proceed to consider the necessity of the national prohibition of the traffic in intoxicating drinks.