national guaranties of protection to transportation and the rights of manufacture and sale existing in all the States and localities which decline to impose the necessary restrictions?" -(50th Congress, 1st Session, Senate Report, No. 1727, p. 3.) The police power of the States is not thus fettered and thwarted. The State of Kansas, for instance, has full power, and can carry out the power, to destroy any intoxicating liquor which any one may attempt to sell as a beverage, whether it was brought into Kansas from Europe, or from the State of Missouri; subject only to the limitation mentioned.

At most that limitation constitutes but a partial obstruction, and that obstruction can be made still less, without any amendment of the Constitution, by an Act of Congress, regulating the size of the packages containing imported liquor.

Upon the hearing before the Senate Committee, Mrs. Bittenbender argued with much apparent force, in favor of national prohibition, as a necessary consequence of the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the late case of Bowman v. The Chicago Railway Company, 125 U. S. 472. The decision in that case was that the statute of Iowa forbidding railways, under a penalty, from bringing intoxicating liquors into the State, was unconstitutional; as infringing upon the power of Congress to regulate commerce between the States; and it was urged by Mrs. Bittenbender that this decision demonstrated the inability of a State to protect itself from the evil effects of an indiscriminate sale of intoxicating drinks without the aid of the general government. But in the first place, it is by no means certain that the decision will remain. the permanent law of the land, since it was reached by a bare majority only of the Court. Justice Lamar did not sit on the hearing of the case, and of the other eight judges, three, including Chief-Justice Waite, dissented. If one other judge had gone with them, the court would have been evenly divided, and the judgment instead of being reversed, would have been sustained.

Even if the opinion of the majority should hereafter be adhered to, the consequence at most is but an obstruction, to a certain extent, requiring more vigilance on the part of the

State, in order to carry out her prohibitory laws. For, according to this decision even, after the first sale has been made, so that the liquors may be considered as a part of the general property of the community, the State has full jurisdiction over them. A partial and temporary obstruction of that sort, is not sufficient to justify the State in abnegating its police power in favor of the federal government. As a general rule, people engaged in wholesaling liquors will not take them into a prohibition State, because there the demand for them is so much less.

The Report states that "there are members of the committee who concur in the report recommending the submission of the proposed amendment to the States, who do not, by such action, indicate their approval of the adoption of the amendment as a part of the Constitution, nor that they would themselves advocate its ratification by the legislatures of the States; but in deference to the immense mass of petitions for this amendment of the organic law, coming from the people in all parts of the country, and believing that an opportunity should be given to them to be heard upon the merits of their cause in the forum of the States, where alone it can be heard and decided, the majority of the Committee would deem a refusal to submit the proposed amendment to the States for consideration, analogous to a denial of the right of a party to be heard in court upon a question of private right.”—(Ibid. p. 1.) Afterward it is stated in substance, that to refuse to give the petitioners the right to go before the people of the States on the question, would be a denial of the right of petition.

It is difficult to see how such a position can be maintained, in the face of the wording of the fifth Amendment to the Constitution, which provides for Congress proposing amendments to the Constitution "whenever two-thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary." If a member of Congress does not deem an amendment necessary, and would, for that reason, oppose it in his State, how can he, in the conscientious discharge of his duty, vote to submit the proposition to the action of the States? If he is afraid of the "immense mass" of petitioners, the best way to placate them is to advocate prohibition in his own State.

The right of petition is not denied. A certain portion of the citizens of a State have not a right to advocate before their State Legislature, a Constitutional Amendment which less than two-thirds of the members of Congress deem necessary. Such citizens have the full right of petition in their own State. Having exercised that right, but without avail, they go before Congress, and ask for an amendment compelling their State to do that which it is unwilling to do voluntarily. That is not such a right of petition as is recognized and protected in the State and Federal Constitutions.

A Prohibition Amendment, word.for word the same as Senator Blair's, was introduced in the House by Mr. Dingley, of Maine.

BIGAMY AND POLYGAMY.

Senator Cullom has introduced the following amendment: “ARTICLE XVI. Section 1. The only institution or contract of marriage within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction, shall be that of the union in marriage of one man with one woman; and bigamy or polygamy is forever prohibited; any law, custom, form or ceremony, civil or religious, to the contrary notwithstanding.

"Sec. 2. No State shall pass.any law, nor allow any custom, form or ceremony of marriage, except in obedience to and conformably to the institution of marriage as herein defined and established; but otherwise the regulation within each State, of marriage and divorce, and civil and criminal jurisdiction over those subjects, shall belong to the several States as heretofore.

"Sec. 3. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."

The manifest object of this amendment is to prevent the establishment of polygamy in Utah as a State institution, after the Territory shall have been admitted into the Union; since no such amendment is required in reference to the States now in the Union, monogamy being recognized both by the common law and by State legislation, as the only valid marriage relation.

The objection to adopting such an amendment with express reference to Utah, is two-fold.

In the first place, it is an applied admission, that when such a safeguard has been established, Utah may be admitted; whereas it ought not to be admitted as a State, so long as

it maintains its present attitude, and continues to evade the anti-polygamy law already passed by Congress. Nay further; it ought not to be admitted so long as the controlling influences in the Territory are in favor of polygamy. So long as that is the case, such an amendment would not be a sufficient guaranty.

In the second place, the disease is too deep-seated to be reached by this amendment. Polygamy is not, as many suppose, the only objection to receiving Utah as a State. Polygamy is only an eruption on the surface of the religio-political body. The vital trouble is, that in the valley of Salt Lake has been established a religious hierarchy, with political pretensions entirely antagonistic to the Republic. There has never been a day since Brigham Young led the Mormons into that valley, when the conformity of his "people" to the laws and institutions of the United States, has been more than a mere matter of form. The theory is that these are God's chosen people, who have come up to Mount Zion, where they are to establish an independent government, which is eventually to absorb all the nations of the earth. The "gentiles,” by which term they mean all outsiders, and especially the people of the United States, they look upon as their mortal enemies and their legitimate prey.

The Territory of Utah ought never to be admitted into the Union, until that element in the population is in a minority; and in a minority so decided that it is likely to remain permanently in that position. That is the only reliable guaranty for its good behavior.

Senator Dolph, of Oregon, has also introduced a joint resolution as follows:

"Congress shall have power to legislate upon the subjects of marriage and divorce by general laws applicable alike to all the States and Territories, and neither bigamy nor polygamy shall exist or be permitted within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

This is the Cullom Amendment and the Springer Amendment combined; and since both those have been examined, this needs no further consideration. In the House, Anti-Polygamy Amendments were introduced by Congressmen Ezra B. Taylor,

of Ohio, Springer, of Illinois, Stewart, of Vermont, Culberson, of Texas, and Breckenridge, of Kentucky.

WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

AMENDMENT INTRODUCED BY SENATOR BLAIR.

The general government has already taken jurisdiction over the suffrage question in reference to the colored race, and has thereby established a precedent. But the Fifteenth Amendment is practically inoperative in the very States for which it was principally intended.

A Woman Suffrage Amendment was introduced in the House, also, by Mr. Reed, of Maine.

THE VETO POWER.

AMENDMENT PROPOSED BY SENATOR STEWART..

This amendment provides for passing a law by a majority vote over the Presidential veto. If the President disapprove the act, he is to return it with his objections, as at the present time, but it then may become a law by being passed by a majority of each house.

We do not think the people are prepared to dispense with the guaranty against hasty legislation, which is afforded by the presidential veto. The veto power may, it is true, be abused, and so may any of the powers confided to any public officer. All the reasons which operated on the minds of the framers of the Constitution,, in providing for the veto power, remain in full force.

ELECTION OF PRESIDENT AND VICE-PRESIDENT

BY THE PEOPLE, AND RESTRICTION TO ONE TERM. Senator Cockrell, of Missouri, introduced an amendment to be substituted for the first section of the second article of the Constitution, providing that the President and Vice-President be chosen every four years by the people, and that the President be ineligible to a second term. In case of failure to elect, the choice is to be made by the two Houses in joint session.

The object of having electors voted for by the people was, partly to guard against any irregularity in making direct returns of votes for President and Vice-President, and partly to preserve the representation of States, two of the electors