''Hawke v. Smith'', 253 U.S. 221 (1920), was a

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

case coming out of the state of

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

. It challenged the constitutionality of a provision in the state constitution allowing the state legislature's ratification of federal constitutional amendments to be challenged by a petition signed by six percent of Ohio voters. This would then bring the issue to referendum. In the case of Ohio and the 18th Amendment, the legislature ratified the amendment and, before the ninety-day waiting period had passed, the Secretary of State,

Robert Lansing Robert Lansing (; October 17, 1864 – October 30, 1928) was an American lawyer and diplomat who served as Counselor to the State Department at the outbreak of World War I, and then as United States Secretary of State under President Woodrow Wils ...

, declared the 18th Amendment to be in effect. Meanwhile, a petition was signed by at least six percent of the voters and, in the ensuing referendum, a majority of Ohio voters voted against

prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic ...

, seemingly invalidating the passage of the 18th Amendment. The controversy regarding this situation led to litigation. The issue before the court was whether or not a state had a right to reserve to its people the right to review its legislature's ratification of federal amendments. The prohibitionists argued that the Constitution provided for the ratifying of federal amendments by state legislatures—it said nothing about the people's right to review such amendments. Opponents of this view argued that the Constitution did not say anything about what constituted a state legislature and it was up to each of the states to decide what constituted its legislature. Thus in the case of Ohio, the idea of "state legislature" came with the limit of not being able to ratify a federal amendment without review by the people of the state, and, thus, the amendment had not been ratified.

Opinion of the Court

On June 1, 1920, the Court ruled that Ohio voters could not overturn the state legislature's approval of the Eighteenth Amendment.Hawke v. Smith
Ohio Historical Society. Retrieved on 2008-06-12.

Significance

''Hawke v. Smith'' was important for two reasons. First, several other states had been considering referendums on

Prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic ...

. This case made it clear that the 18th Amendment was valid. Second, the fact that the amendment passed in Ohio despite a majority of voters voting against it fostered the idea that Prohibition was the work of powerful groups and not the people themselves.

References

Bibliography

* Kyvig, David E. ''Repealing National Prohibition.'' 2nd ed. Kent, Ohio: The Kent State UP, 2000. Pages 14–16.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hawke V. Smith 1920 in United States case law Legal history of Ohio Prohibition in the United States United States Supreme Court cases United States Supreme Court cases of the White Court 1920 in Ohio United States Eighteenth Amendment case law United States Constitution Article Five case law Referendums in the United States