Hamilton thinks it a prodigy that Americans, in “conventions,” voluntarily constitute the enumerated First Article government powers to interfere with their individual liberty--Marshall, in Supreme Court, declares “conventions” to be the only manner in which they can act “safely, wisely and effectively” in constituting government of themselves, by making such grants--When proposed 1917 first new grant of that kind is supposedly made, American people and their “conventions” are completely ignored--The proposers have a Fifth Article which does not mention “conventions”--The proposers have the old Tory concept, that the people are the assets of the state and that government is the state--Still trying to find out how and when we became “subjects,” we expect to get information from the litigations of 1920--We expect great counsel, on one side, to urge the facts we know--We fear that other great counsel will urge, in reply, some fact or facts which we have not been able to ascertain--We are certain that there is no Eighteenth Amendment, if the facts we have learned are all the facts--That we may listen intelligently to all the great counsel, we review some of the facts we have learned. XX. LEST WE FORGET _Page 307_ “The important distinction so well understood in America, between a constitution established by the people and unalterable by the government and a law established by the government and alterable by the government”--Our first glance at briefs of 1920 gives us hope that some modern leaders have acquired the knowledge of Hamilton and his generation--We find, in one brief, in Marshall’s words, the Supreme Court statement of the fact that “conventions” of the people, not states or their governments, made the Constitution with its First Article grants of power to interfere with human liberty--But this brief, to our amazement, is that of the foremost champion of the only other grant of that kind, the Eighteenth Amendment, a grant made entirely by government to government--In 1920, seven litigations argued and reported under the one title “The National Prohibition Cases”--Distinguished counsel appear for many clients, for the claimed omnipotent Parliament of America, for the American government which we used to know as our supreme government, for a few state governments who did not wish to be part of the omnipotent Parliament, for those engaged in the lawful business of manufacturing, etc., the commodities named in the Eighteenth Amendment--Like the human right to breathe, such manufacture, etc., was not the privilege of a citizen--Both rights are among the human rights men have before they create nations and give governments power to interfere with some or all of their human rights--Citizens of America, giving their only American government its enumerated powers, gave it no power to interfere with the human right mentioned in the new Amendment--Human rights never are privileges