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.