We know what Madison told the Americans in the “conventions,” when he asked them to make his Fifth Article. He told them that it was a “mode of procedure” in which either the general government or the state governments could _originate_, by _proposal_, the introduction of changes into the Constitution which is both _national_ and _federal_. He pointedly did _not_ tell those Americans that the Fifth Article is a “grant” of any ability to the state governments to make _national_ Articles and he pointedly did _not_ tell them that it is a “grant” of ability to anyone to _make_ any Articles. Why then was it necessary for the leading brief, in support of the Eighteenth Amendment, to _add_ to Madison’s explanation of his own Fifth Article (the explanation that it was a “mode of procedure”) the absurd statement that it was a “grant” from the “conventions” to the “conventions” and the state legislatures of power _to make_ Amendments? Why then was it necessary that this brief, speaking of the Fifth Article, should say: “The people thus ordained the mode of Amendment,” exactly what Madison said, “and in their own interest they established this power of Amendment”--exactly what Madison pointedly omitted to state to the Americans he asked to make the Fifth Article? The answer is simple. Without adding to the Madison statement what he pointedly omitted to state, without stating the addition as axiomatic, Hughes could not even _begin_ any argument for the Eighteenth Amendment. The statement which Hughes adds to that of Madison is a statement which flatly contradicts everything we have heard in the “conventions.” It flatly contradicts everything the Americans did from 1775 on. It flatly contradicts the Tenth Amendment declaration that the Fifth Article gives _no_ power whatever to the states or _their_ governments. The added statement is sheer “nonsense,” assumed and asserted as axiomatic fact. And, during the last five years, how has every argument against the Eighteenth Amendment met the “nonsense” of the assumption that the Fifth Article is a “grant?” In no way at all, except by assuming and asserting the same “nonsense,” and by then undertaking to prove another absurdity, namely, that the Fifth Article does not _relate_ to the making of fundamental changes _because_ the imaginary “grant” is limited in extent and does not include power to take away from the importance of the respective political entities which are the states. Let no American citizen make any mistake as to this one fact. In no argument either for or against the Eighteenth Amendment has there been any challenge to the sheer assumption that the Fifth Article is a “grant” of ability to make changes in the Constitution which is both _federal_ and _national_. On the contrary, in every argument, the foundation of everything asserted and urged is that very assumption.