being merely that of submitting the question to the State
Legislatures; as though the passage of the Amendment by a two-thirds
vote of Congress did not necessarily imply approval, but only a
willingness to let the sentiment of the several States decide. Of
course, such a view is preposterous; of course, if such were the
purpose of the Constitutional procedure there would be no requirement
of a two-thirds vote.* But many members of Congress were glad enough
to take refuge behind this view of their duty, absurd though it was;
and no one can say how large a part it played in securing the
requisite two-thirds of House and Senate. Yet from the moment the
Amendment was thus adopted by Congress, nothing more was heard of this
notion of that body having performed the merely ministerial act of
passing the question on to the Legislatures. On the contrary, the
two-thirds vote (and more) was pointed to as conclusive evidence of
the overwhelming support of the Amendment by the nation; the
Legislatures were expected to get with alacrity into the band-wagon
into which Congress had so eagerly climbed. Evidently, it would have
been far more difficult to get the Eighteenth Amendment into the
Constitution if the two-thirds vote of Congress had been the sole
requirement for its adoption. Congressmen disposed to take their
responsibility lightly, and yet not altogether without conscience,
voted with the feeling that their act was not final, when they might
otherwise have shrunk from doing what their Judgment told them was
wrong; and, the thing once through Congress, Legislatures hastened to
ratify in the feeling that ratification by the requisite number of
Legislatures was manifestly a foregone conclusion. Thus at no stage of
the game was there given to this tremendous Constitutional departure
anything even distantly approaching the kind of consideration that
such a step demands. The country was jockeyed and stampeded into the
folly it has committed; and who can say what may be the next folly