What Prohibition Has Done to America

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What Prohibition Has Done to America, by

Fabian Franklin
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: What Prohibition Has Done to America
Author: Fabian Franklin

Release Date: December 30, 2005 [eBook #17417]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT PROHIBITION HAS DONE TO AMERICA***
This eBook was produced by J. Henry Phillips.

What Prohibition Has Done to America
by Fabian Franklin Copyright 1922, Harcourt, Brace & Co., New York.
Table of Contents
Chapter I
- Perverting the Constitution
Chapter II
- Creating a Nation of Lawbreakers
Chapter III
- Destroying Our Federal System
Chapter IV
- How the Amendment Was Put Through
Chapter V
- The Law Makers and the Law
Chapter VI
- The Law Enforcers and the Law
Chapter VII
- Nature of the Prohibitionist Tyranny
Chapter VIII
- One-Half of One Percent
Chapter IX
- Prohibition and Liberty
Chapter X
- Prohibition and Socialism
Chapter XI
- Is There Any Way Out?
CHAPTER I
PERVERTING THE CONSTITUTION
THE object of a Constitution like that of the United States is to establish certain fundamentals of government in such a way that they cannot be altered or destroyed by the mere will of a majority of the people, or by the ordinary processes of legislation. The framers of the Constitution saw the necessity of making a distinction between these fundamentals and the ordinary subjects of law-making, and accordingly they, and the people who gave their approval to the Constitution, deliberately arrogated to themselves the power to shackle future majorities in regard to the essentials of the system of government which they brought into being. They did this with a clear consciousness of the object which they had in view--the stability of the new government and the protection of certain fundamental rights and liberties. But they did not for a moment entertain the idea of imposing upon future generations, through the extraordinary sanctions of the Constitution, their views upon any special subject of ordinary legislation. Such a proceeding would have seemed to them far more monstrous, and far less excusable, than that tyranny of George III and his Parliament which had given rise to the American Revolution.
Until the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment, the Constitution of the United States retained the character which properly belongs to the organic law of a great Federal Republic. The matters with which it dealt were of three kinds, and three only--the division of powers as between the Federal and the State governments, the structure of the Federal government itself, and the safeguarding of the fundamental rights of American citizens. These were things that it was felt essential to remove from the vicissitudes attendant upon the temper of the majority at given time. There was not to be any doubt from year to year as to the limits of Federal power on the one hand and State power on the other; nor as to the structure of the Federal government and the respective functions of the legislative, executive, and judicial departments of that government; nor as to the preservation of certain fundamental rights pertaining to life, liberty and property.
That these things, once laid down in the organic law of the country, should not be subject to disturbance except by the extraordinary and difficult process of amendment prescribed by the Constitution was the dictate of the highest political wisdom; and it was only because of the manifest wisdom upon which it was based that the Constitution, in spite of many trials and drawbacks, commanded, during nearly a century and a half of momentous history, the respect and devotion of generation after generation of American citizens. Although the Constitution of the United States has been pronounced by an illustrious British statesman the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man, it would be not only folly, but superstition, to regard it as perfect. It has been amended in the past, and will need to be amended in the future. The Income Tax Amendment enlarged the power of the Federal government in the field of taxation, and to that extent encroached upon a domain theretofore reserved to the States. The amendment which referred the election of Senators to popular vote, instead of having them chosen by the State Legislatures, altered a feature of the mechanism originally laid down for the setting up of the Federal government. The amendments that were adopted as a consequence of the Civil War were designed to put an end to slavery and to guarantee to the negroes the fundamental rights of freemen. With the exception of the amendments adopted almost immediately after the framing of the Constitution itself, and therefore usually regarded as almost forming