That Congress had passed a statute, known as the “Corrupt Practices Act.” In it, certain practices, at federal primary and other elections, were prohibited and made criminal offenses. His client had been tried and convicted by a jury as guilty of one of these practices in a primary election for the nomination to the Senate of America. On the appeal to the Supreme Court, Hughes urged that, as our American government _is_ a government of _enumerated_ powers, _incidentally a fact which his claim for the state governments in the National Prohibition Cases flatly denies_. Congress could not _validly_ pass the statute, under which his client had been convicted, unless the power to pass a statute in that particular matter was found in some enumerated power in the Constitution. The Constitution clearly gave Congress power to pass laws concerning “elections” for federal officers. But, urged Hughes, the Americans of 1788, the “conventions” in the Fifth and Seventh Articles, did not know anything about “primary” elections. Therefore, urged Hughes, Congress has not the power to make the same thing a penal offense at “primary” elections, which Congress can make a penal offense at the regular elections. By a divided Court, this argument, based on the claim of _limited_ power in the _supreme_ legislature to prohibit what a candidate for Senator may do, was sustained and the conviction was reversed. It is amazing, therefore, to turn to the Eighteenth Amendment brief of the same briefer, a few months earlier, and to find him contending for his clients therein, twenty-four governments of state citizens, an absolute omnipotence to interfere with individual freedom of American citizens on every subject. And it is startling to find, in this brief, audacious denial of any right in the Supreme Court even to consider whether these governments of state citizens have that omnipotence over the American citizen. In the case of the candidate for Senator, it was his concept and his claim that the Supreme Court can decide that the _supreme legislature_ in America had not the power to make a certain command to candidates for seats in the American Senate. This is the doctrine that the only government of the American citizens is a government of enumerated powers. In the Eighteenth Amendment litigation, the following is his contention, that thirty-six governments of state citizens (the _inferior_ legislatures in America) have unlimited power, without any constitutional restraint, to make commands to the American citizens on any matter whatsoever: