Upon the question of centralization or decentralization, of Federal power or State autonomy, there is room for rational difference of opinion. But upon the question whether a regulation prescribing the personal habits of individuals forms a proper part of the Constitution of a great nation there is no room whatever for rational difference of opinion. Whether Prohibition is right or wrong, wise or unwise, all sides are agreed that it is a denial of personal liberty. Prohibitionists maintain that the denial is justified, like other restraints upon personal liberty to which we all assent; anti-prohibitionists maintain that this denial of personal liberty is of a vitally different nature from those to which we all assent. That it is a denial of personal liberty is undisputed; and the point with which we are at this moment concerned is that to entrench a denial of liberty behind the mighty ramparts of our Constitution is to do precisely the opposite of what our Constitution--or any Constitution like ours--is designed to do. The Constitution withdraws certain things from the control of the majority for the time being--withdraws them from the province of ordinary legislation--for the purpose of safeguarding liberty, the Eighteenth Amendment seizes upon the mechanism designed for this purpose, and perverts it to the diametrically opposite end, that of safeguarding the denial of liberty. All history teaches that liberty is in danger from the tyranny of majorities as well as from that of oligarchies and monarchies; accordingly the Constitution says: No mere majority, no ordinary legislative procedure, shall be competent to deprive the people of the liberty that is hereby guaranteed to them. But the Eighteenth Amendment says: No mere majority, no mere legislative procedure, shall be competent to restore to the people the liberty that is hereby taken away from them. Thus, quite apart from all questions as to the merits of Prohibition in itself, the Eighteenth Amendment is a Constitutional monstrosity. That this has not been more generally and more keenly recognized is little to the credit of the American people, and still less to the credit of the American press and of those who should be the leaders of public opinion. One circumstance may, however, be cited which tends to extenuate in some degree this glaring failure of political sense and judgment. There have long been Prohibition enactments in many of our State Constitutions, and this has made familiar and commonplace the idea of Prohibition as part of a Constitution. But our State Constitutions are not Constitutions in anything like the same sense as that which attaches to the Constitution of the United States. Most of our State Constitutions can be altered with little more difficulty than ordinary laws; the process merely takes a little more time, and offers no serious obstacle to any object earnestly desired by a substantial majority of the people of the State.