Now it so happens that while the legislature of the state of Ohio ratified the prohibition amendment, the people of the state took the very first opportunity of repudiate ing it, and their repudiation of it was upheld by the Supreme Court of the state.
In the case submitted to the S. Supreme Court it was contended that in states having a referendum law the referendum really constituted a part of the machinery of ratification, and that consequently the ratification by the state legislature was invalid.
But the court of final resort tore this contention into shreds. held that the states have no right to substitute another mode of ratification for the mode provided in the Constitution, on the ground that the act of ratification by the state derives its authority from the Federal Constitution to which the state and its people have alike assented. Any other view than this, the Court held, might lead to endless confusion in the manner of ratifying Federal amendments, and the opinion went so far as to declare that the choice of means of ratification was deliberately and wisely withheld from conflicting action in the several states. So the main hope of the anti-prohibitionists fell to the ground.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.