Wynehamer v. the People

Appellant
James Wynehamer
Appellee
People of the State of New York
Appellant's Claim
That the law prohibiting the sale of alcohol under which Wynehamer was indicted was unconstitutional, because it abridged his constitutional right to dispose of his own property as he saw fit.
Chief Lawyer for Appellant
A. J. Parker
Chief Lawyer for Appellee
A. Sawin
Justices for the Court
Chief Justice Denio, Justices Comstock (writing for the court), Hubbard, Johnson, Johnson, Mitchell, Selden, Wright
Justices Dissenting
None
Place
Albany, New York
Date of Decision
March 1856
Decision
That the prohibitionary law violated the portion of the state constitution declaring that no citizen be deprived of life, liberty, or property without dueprocess of law.
Significance
The case struck down an early prohibition statute with higher-law doctrine, and set the stage for national prohibition to be proposed as a constitutionalamendment.
The Temperance Movement
Wynehamer v. the People of the State of New York was an important early prohibition case. The case pitted an early prohibition statute against therights of due process. The court of appeals ruled that the statute banning the sale of alcohol was unconstitutional, because it deprived a citizen of hisrightful property without due process. In doing so, it supported the era's general movement towards "higher-law" doctrine--the idea that certain natural laws prevailed even if they were not stated explicitly in the Constitution.
The mid-nineteenth century saw the emergence of a fervent anti-alcohol movement. Consumption of liquor was cited as the cause of many social ills, including poverty, insanity, gambling, and all sorts of immorality. The "temperance"movement, which advocated drinking only in moderation, tried to convince people to set a strong moral example for the weak-willed. Slowly, this attitudegave way to a more forceful approach that advocated the complete prohibitionof alcohol. Twelve states during the antebellum period attempted to pass lawsbanning the sale of alcohol. On 9 April 1855, the State of New York passed astatute entitled "An Act for the Prevention of Intemperance, Pauperism and Crime."
Prohibition and Property
The Wynehamer case was straight-forward. In July of 1855, James Wynehamer, a Buffalo bar owner, was arrested and indicted for selling intoxicatingliquors in violation of the new statute. Although the accused protested thathe was being denied his constitutional right to be tried by a jury of his peers, the trial took place in the court of special sessions, with a six-personjury. Wynehamer pleaded not guilty. His counsel argued that the statute underwhich he had been indicted was unconstitutional. Since Wynehamer had legallypurchased his liquors before the enactment of the statute, he was being denied his right to dispose of his property as he saw fit. The court of special sessions disagreed and found the defendant guilty. He was fined fifty dollarsand forced to remain interred until the fine was paid. Wynehamer appealed thejudgment, which was then upheld by the Supreme Court of the Eighth District.The case was then reviewed by the court of appeals.
The court of appeals reversed the judgments of the two lower courts with a vote of five to three, determining that the prohibition act violated "the provision of the state constitution which declares that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law." In order to do so, the court first had to establish that intoxicating liquors were indeed property, a principle which Justice George M. Comstock deemed uncontroversial inhis groundbreaking opinion. Although it was true, Comstock admitted, that "intoxicating drinks are a species of property which performs no beneficent part in the political, moral, or social economy of the world," that fact did notdiminish their status as property. If arguments about its moral value were allowed to subvert the idea of property, he asserted, "then there is no private right entirely safe," and "the guarantees of the constitution are a mere waste of words."
The court's final decision was tantamount to a declaration that a natural orhigher law protected private property. Comstock referred to a passage in William Blackstone's Commentaries in which the author declares that the importance accorded the rights of property outweighs even the public good. Theories of the public good may be supported by large numbers of people, declaredComstock, but "there are some absolute private rights beyond their reach." Without taking on the issue of whether temperance idealists were right or wrong about the pernicious effects of alcohol, Comstock dismissed their attempt at prohibition as unconstitutional.
Dissenting judges argued that the legislature had the right to regulate, restrict, or even prohibit traffic in property for the sake of preventing injuryand protecting the community. If the right of traffic or transmission of property was considered an inalienable right, wrote Judge T. A. Johnson, then "the right to property and its transmission would be held superior to the rightto life and liberty." Two other judges joined Johnson in dissenting, but themajority was not convinced.
In striking down a prohibition statute with higher-law principles, the New York Court of Appeals contributed to the growing practice of higher-law jurisprudence in the nineteenth century. It also established the legal environment in which a successful enactment of prohibition could occur by constitutional amendment. The New York court was in keeping with the nation's focus on property rights in the antebellum era, a focus that would take on very political overtones in the years leading up to the Civil War. It also foreshadowed the U.S. Supreme Court's struggle with issues of due process, a process that beganin the 1850s and continued until the final decades of the nineteenth century.
The Temperance Movement
The temperance movement, which sought to greatly reduce or eliminate the saleand consumption of alcohol, first emerged in the early 1800s as part of a religious evangelical revival that swept the United States. During the nineteenth century, the per capita consumption of alcohol in America continued to grow and so did the temperance movement. Maine in 1846 became the first "dry" state, and a dozen others soon followed. Difficulties in enforcement led most states to abandon their liquor laws within a quarter-century, and the temperance movement abated. The rise of political groups such as the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) signalled a resurgence of the temperance movement.The upheaval of World War I, along with a shortage of grain caused by the war, gave temperance activists an opportunity to move prohibition legislation forward.
In 1919 Congress ratified the Eighteenth Amendment, which prohibited the manufacture, sale, and consumption of alcohol in the United States. Prohibition,however, was repealed by the Twenty-first Amendment in 1933. By then, the temperance movement had ceased to be a viable force in American political life.
Sources
West's Encyclopedia of American Law. St. Paul, MN: West Group, 1998.