In the House of Representatives, in the first session of the new Congress with the enumerated powers of the First Article, on May 15, there came up for discussion “a proposed bill laying duties on goods.” Madison “moved to lay an impost of eight cents on all beer imported. He did not think this would be a monopoly, but he hoped it would be such an encouragement so as to induce the manufacture to take deep root in every state of the Union.” (4 _Ell. Deb._ 345.) That the knowledge of Madison was not unknown to the Supreme Court a century later, in 1890, is a matter of record. That ardent spirits, distilled liquors, ale, and beer are subjects of exchange, barter, and traffic, like any other commodity _in which a right of traffic exists_, and are so recognized by the usages of the commercial world, the laws of Congress, and the decisions of courts, is not denied. (Leisy v. Hardin, 135 _U. S._ 100.) Returning to the courtroom of 1920, therefore, we are sincerely glad to note the appearance of quite an array of eminent counsel on behalf of those legitimately engaged in a business which is just as legitimate an exercise of human right, as it was when Madison hoped that it would take deep root in every state of the America he loved so well, a business which will continue free from _unlawful_ usurpation of power by government so long as the Constitution planned by Madison is obeyed by governments in America. It is too bad that the eminent counsel, who shared Madison’s views in relation to that legitimate business, did not also have Madison’s accurate knowledge of the only way in which legitimate government power can be created to interfere with that or any other human right, the way which Madison so clearly stated in the Fifth Article--by grant from the “conventions” of American citizens. When we average Americans look over the great array of counsel and the respective clients whose causes they champion, one fact lends no encouragement to our hope that we may learn the merits of the claim that, somehow between 1907 and 1917 we became subjects and lost our status as free men. Although each client is represented by his own distinguished attorneys and although eminent counsel argue and file briefs, as _amici curiæ_, on behalf of the state governments which claim that we are subjects and on behalf of some of the litigating other states and individuals, no _amicus curiæ_ files any brief on behalf of us, the citizens of America, the reservees of the Tenth Amendment, the “conventions” of the Seventh and the Fifth Articles.