count of race, etc., as it was on account of age, property, or education. Now it is not."

A State which voted against the adoption of this Amendment left the word "white" in its constitution as descriptive of those entitled to vote. The Supreme Court said (1880) that the Amendment struck the word from the constitution of the State.

The "Grandfather's Clause" cases, as they were called, were decided by the Supreme Court in 1915. In 1908 a law was passed in Maryland giving the right to vote to all persons who, prior to January 1, 1868, were entitled to vote in that State "and to the lawful male descendants of any person" who was at that time entitled to vote. As the Negro was not at that time entitled to vote in the State, and as the Fifteenth Amendment forbidding restrictions upon him had not been adopted, the State law operated to exclude all his descendants from the polls. In 1910 a constitutional amendment in Oklahoma presented a literacy test (which may be legal if fair) and at the same time limited the right to vote to a person who was a voter on January 1, 1866, or a lineal descendant of such a person. In both of these instances the "previous condition of servitude" actually determined that a class could not vote. The Supreme Court held that the State law and the State constitutional provision were both violative of the Fifteenth Amendment, because they were based on standards which became illegal by the self-operating force of the Amendment. Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

ARTICLE XVI.

Proposed by Congress July 31, 1909; proclaimed adopted February 25, 1913.

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes,181

181 The purpose of the Amendment, said the Supreme Court (1916), was, not to extend the taxing power of the government, but only to exclude the source from which a taxed income is derived from being used as the criterion in determining whether it should be apportioned by Congress among the States on the basis of population in obedience to the clause explained by Note 10.

' from whatever source derived,182 without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

182 But this does not authorize the taxing of the salaries of the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States and of the judges of the inferior Federal courts, for it is forbidden (Note 98) that they be diminished. Therefore the Supreme Court held (1920) unconstitutional that clause of the Income Tax Act of 1919 which named such salaries as subject to taxation. The command that the salaries of judges be not reduced was given, not in any sense to favor the individuals who receive the salaries, but solely to protect the judicial officers of the Nation from being intimidated by the Legislative and Executive departments out of a state of independence into a condition of fear. If the justices of the Supreme Court and the judges of the Federal courts should have incomes from lands or from any other property, they must pay a tax upon those incomes as all other individuals do upon theirs. But the salaries paid to them by the Nation as its judicial officers are not to be diminished.

ARTICLE XVII.

Proposed by Congress May 15, 1912; proclaimed adopted May 31, 1913.

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the peo

ple thereof, for six years; 183 and each Senator shall have one vote.

183 This Amendment changes the clause explained by Note 19. Senators are now elected by the people (as members of the House of Representatives always have been) instead of by the legislatures of the States. More than thirty States had declared for the direct election of senators. During the preceding twenty years so many protracted election contests had been conducted in State legislatures that legislation for the benefit of the States could not be carried on. In some instances no senator was elected and thus the State was deprived of its full vote in the Senate. The first resolution to amend the Constitution in this respect was introduced in Congress in 1826. Many others were introduced from time to time.

In 1869 President Johnson suggested to Congress an amendment for the direct election of senators.

Before this Amendment public opinion often affected or controlled the choice of a senator. Thus the famous debates throughout Illinois between Lincoln and Douglas (1858) were in quest of a senatorship.

The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures.

When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies; Provided, that the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointment until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.

This Amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution.

ARTICLE XVIII.

Proposed by Congress December 19, 1917; proclaimed adopted January 29, 1919.

Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.184

184 On June 7, 1920, the Supreme Court of the United States, disposing in one opinion of seven cases arising in New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Kentucky, Wisconsin, and Missouri, held that by Article V of the Constitution (Note 129) the power to make this Amendment was reserved by the people. As the source of all power is in the people, it is difficult to conceive of an invalid amendment if it has been carried through by regular proceedings. While originally the people may not have believed a subject one for consideration in the Constitution, they may change their opinion, and their will is the supreme law. The Supreme Court said that the first section (the one declaring the prohibition) "is operative throughout the entire territorial limits of the United States, binds all legislative bodies, courts, public officers and individuals within those limits, and of its own force invalidates every legislative act - whether by Congress, by a State legislature, or by a territorial assembly - which authorizes or sanctions what the section prohibits.'

That gives a remarkably striking illustration of the practical operation of that marvelous invention of American statesmanship, the Constitution as the supreme law of the land, before which all conflicting constitutions and laws are nullities, as ineffectual as if they never existed. In like manner the Fourteenth Amendment, as has been seen, struck

racial limitations out of northern as well as southern State constitutions, wiped away volumes of enactments by the Congress and by the legislatures of the States, and rendered useless except as history a great number of judicial decisions upon the status of the slave.

It was contended that "two-thirds of both Houses" in Article V means two thirds of the membership of each House, and that as such a vote did not propose this Amendment, it was invalid. But the Supreme Court repeated what it had held in an earlier case, that two thirds of the members present, assuming the presence of a quorum (majority), may propose an Amendment.

It was held further that under Article V a State cannot ratify or reject an Amendment by a referendum; action must be taken by its legislature or by a convention.

Section 2. The Congress and the several States' shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.185

185 The meaning of this language provoked a great deal of discussion while the Amendment was pending. Where State and Federal courts have "concurrent jurisdiction" of a subject, for example, the one whose jurisdiction is first invoked retains the case to the exclusion of the other. Did Congress mean anything like that when it wrote "concurrent power" in the Amendment? Would the inadequate legislation of an unsympathetic State prevent Congress from legislating? Would early legislation by Congress exclude a State from the field? The Supreme Court said that the words do not mean joint power, or require that legislation by Congress must be sanctioned by a State, or that the power is divided along lines which distinguish State commerce from interstate.

It was evidently the purpose to make use of the experience of many of the States in enforcing prohibitory laws and to put with that experience the power of the