Eberle v. Michigan

Citations

• 232 U.S. 700
• 34 S. Ct. 464
• 58 L. Ed. 803
• 1914 U.S. LEXIS 1299

Syllabus

<p>The validity of a local option law adopted after amendments is not affected by the fact that the amendments are subsequently declared to be unconstitutional.</p> <p>Unconstitutional amendments to a constitutional statute are mere nullities.</p> <p>Whether the adoption by a district of a local option statute is affected by the subsequent determination by the courts that certain features of the. act were unconstitutional, is not a Federal question and is. for the state court to determine.</p> <p>On writ of error under § 237, Judicial Code, this court cannot inquire into motives or arguments which influenced electors to vote for or against a measure, or reverse the action of the state court on the ground that the electors voted under misapprehension.</p> <p>A State may prohibit the sale of liquor absolutely or conditionally; may prohibit the sale as a beverage and permit it for medicinal purposes; may prohibit the sale by merchants and permit it by licensed druggists; and so held, that the Michigan Local Option Act of 1889 is not unconstitutional under the equal protection provision of the Fourteenth Amendment on account of discrimination in making certain specific exceptions to the general prohibition.</p> <p>While a liquor law which prohibited the sale of property existing at th¿ time of its enactment might be confiscatory (Bartemeyer v. Iowa, 18 Wall. 129), the prohibition of manufacturing liquor after the enactment is not confiscatory even as applied to liquor manufactured for the purpose of giving value to a product existing but unfinished when the act was passed.</p> <p>Liquor laws are enacted by virtue of the police power to protect the health, morals and welfare of the public; ánd, while such laws may operate to depreciate the value of property used in the manufacture of liquor, such depreciation is not the taking of property without due process of law as prohibited by the Fourteenth Amendment, and so held as to the Michigan Local Option Act of 1889. Mugler