It is our own certain knowledge that, when governments issue any command to the citizens of America and the command interferes with individual freedom, the maker of the command must show the grant of power to make that particular command. It is the Alpha and Omega of American law that no government has any just power to make any command to the citizens of America, except in a matter on which those citizens themselves have given that government the power to make that particular command. It is in the primer of American constitutional law, that there is no government _of the citizens of America_, except the government at Washington, and that it has no power to command the American citizen, interfering with his individual freedom, _except_ in the matters named in the First Article. It is admitted by all, even by the writer of that brief and his colleagues, that the power to make the command which is the First Section of the Eighteenth Amendment, is not enumerated in that First Article. When, therefore, this counsel for twenty-four of the governments which made that command tells us that, after his client governments (at the suggestion of our government which could not make the command) have passed upon the propriety and advisability of the command, we cannot have the Supreme Court even consider the ability of his client governments to make the command, our indignation is mingled with our mirth. Our indignation need not be explained. Our mirth comes when we think of our needless fear that something might have happened between 1907 and 1917 by which we became “subjects” instead of the citizens we had been. Throughout our education we have always known that, _if_ the Eighteenth Amendment (a NATIONAL article made entirely by GOVERNMENTS) is in the Constitution, we are “subjects.” We have known that no legislative governments, before 1787 _and after_ 1776, could have made this general command to the citizens of America, _because_, during those eleven years, there was no citizen of America and there were no governments in the world who could make any _general_ command to the American people, interfering with their individual freedom on any subject. We have known, with certainty, that, if the Americans in the “conventions” (where we have sat) knew what they were doing and the Supreme Court, for a century, has known what they did, there were no governments in the world, up to the year 1907, who could make that command _to the American citizens_. We have gone everywhere to find what happened, between 1907 and 1917, to change the American citizens into “subjects” of the governments for whom this counsel appears. Now, after the fruitless search elsewhere, we are reading his brief to find out what did happen between 1907 and 1917. His plain answer, as we have already sensed, is--“NOTHING.”