The question thus presented is, we think, of great importance, _but not of much difficulty_. The Constitution was ordained and established by the people of the United States for themselves, for their own government, and not for the government of the individual states. Each state established a constitution for itself, and in that constitution provided such limitations and restrictions on the powers of its particular government as its judgment dictated. The people of the _United States_ framed _such_ a government for the United States as _they_ supposed best adapted to _their_ situation, and best calculated to promote _their_ interests. The powers _they_ conferred on this government were to be exercised by _itself;_ and the limitations on power, if expressed in general terms, are naturally, and, we think, necessarily, applicable to the _government created by the instrument._ They are limitations of power _granted in the instrument itself;_ not of distinct governments, framed by different persons and for different purposes. The decision settled that the entire Constitution vested in the state governments not a single power to interfere with individual freedom in any respect. The decision is based on that one fact. The fact and decision expose the absurdity of the thought that the Fifth Article is a “_grant_” of any _such_ power to the state governments, much less a grant of _every_ such power to those governments. This absurd thought, however, is the assumption on which every advocate of the Eighteenth Amendment based his argument in March, 1920: and it is the assumption upon which wholly depends the existence of the Amendment.