Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 1).pdf/34

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
10
NORTH DAKOTA REPORTS.

commissioners, except as provided for in § 13,"—with another proviso immaterial to this case. § 13 of said act relates to druggists.

From this legislation it is apparent that the original determination of the citizens of Dakota territory to restrict the liquor traffic has constantly augmented, and such augmentation is seen in the increased restriction and increased penalties with which they have hedged the traffic about. No backward step has been taken. Such was the state of the law on that subject when the constitutional convention of North Dakota met, in July, 1889. That convention, with full knowledge of the past legislation, crystalized what it believed to be the desire of the people of North Dakota into article 20 of the proposed constitution, which is as follows: "No person, association, or corporation shall, within this state, manufacture, for sale or gift, any intoxicating liquors; and no person, association, or corporation shall import any of the same, for sale or gift, or keep or sell, or offer the same for sale or gift, barter or trade, as a beverage. The legislative assembly shall by law prescribe regulations for the enforcement of the provisions of this article, and shall thereby provide suitable penalties for the violation thereof." This article was adopted as a portion of the constitution. Relator takes the broad position that chapter 26 of the Laws of 1879, as amended, is repugnant to the above article, and under § 2 of the schedule said chapter is no longer in force, or at least that said chapter is "changed" and "modified" by said article, in so far as it provides for the issuance of license, and hence cannot stand under the provision of the Omnibus Bill as a licensing statute; and further, as the evident intent and purpose of said chapter 26 was to establish a license system, that when said system is abrogated all penalties for its violation necessarily fall with it. The position of relator leads to the inevitable conclusion that there is to-day, in North Dakota, no law by which the open and notorious sale of intoxicating liquors for any purpose, and in any quantity, can be punished. We may go further. Article 20 provides that the "legislative assembly shall by law prescribe regulations for the enforcement of this article, and shall thereby provide suitable penalties for the violation there-