How Prostitution Killed the Constitution - Big Government 5/29/11 5:40 PM

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How Prostitution Killed the Constitution

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by Dr. Paul Moreno

This year marks the centennial of the Mann “White Slave Act,” when Congress made it a federal offence to transport a woman across state lines for “immoral purposes.” Though the act is still on the books (as former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer can tell you), and has been made gender-neutral, it is usually seen as a relic of nineteenth-century moralism. In fact, no act did more to overturn the nineteenth-century constitutional order. The Mann Act was boldly challenged the idea that the Constitution limited Congress’ power the ends enumerated in Article One, section eight. It established an all-purpose federal “police power” that now permits Congress to regulate just about everything.

By 1910, Congress had already taken some steps toward the establishment of a police power—outlawing, for example, the interstate shipment of lottery tickets and of impure food and drugs. The U.S. had recently ratified a multinational treaty to stamp out the international trafficking in prostitutes. The act’s proponents emphasized that it was an attack on the big business of “commercialized vice.” The press and U.S. officials, particularly U.S. Attorney Edwin Sims in Chicago, claimed that a vast “white slave trust” was operating in the country, when in fact there was little coerced prostitution at all.

The bill raised constitutional objections in the House, often from states-rights advocates. But prostitution was so universally reviled that most overcame their constitutional scruples. Rep. William Cox of Indiana had doubts as to the bill’s constitutionality, but said that he “would unhesitatingly resolve that doubt in favor

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The most important question about the statute was whether its applicability to “any other immoral purpose” included more than large-scale commercialized or coercive prostitution. Almost immediately, federal prosecutors went after consenting fornicators and adulterers, absent any coercion or commercial exchange. The act also abetted blackmailers. But Congress did not amend the act to curb these abuses. The Supreme Court unanimously upheld the act against constitutional challenge in 1913. What would later be called a constitutional “right to travel” the Court dismissed as confusing “a right exercised in morality to sustain a right to be exercised in immorality.” Justice Joseph McKenna admitted that “our dual form of government has its perplexities,” but concluded that “surely if the facility of interstate transportation can be taken away from the demoralization of lotteries, the debasement of obscene literature, the contagion of diseased cattle or persons, the impurity of food and drugs, the like facility can be taken away from the systematic enticement to and the enslavement in prostitution and debauchery of women, and, more insistently, of girls.” In acting against these evils, Congress “may adopt not only means necessary but convenient.”

This case, Hoke v. United States did not involve coercive “white slavery,” but it did at least involve commercial prostitution. The Court subsequently gave its approval to prosecutions of a non-commercial nature. Shortly after Woodrow Wilson took office, Drew Caminetti, the son of his immigration commissioner, was arrested for traveling across state lines and engaging in sexual relations with a woman not his wife. The relationship was completely voluntary and not commercial. The Justice Department could not discontinue the case, begun under the previous, Republican administration, lest it give an impression of political favoritism. When Caminetti appealed his conviction, the Supreme Court upheld this application of the Mann Act. Justice William Day declared for the majority that it was compelled to abide by the plain words of the act, that any “immoral purpose” was enough. Justice McKenna for the dissenters claimed that the title, “White Slave Act,” and legislative history showed that Congress intended to reach only “commercialized vice, immoralities having a mercenary purpose… vice as a business.” “Everybody knows that there is a difference between the occasional immoralities of men and women and that systematized and mercenary immorality epitomized in the statute’s graphic phrase, ‘white slave traffic.’” Nevertheless, Mann wrote to Justice Day to congratulate him on his proper interpretation of the act. There would be nearly five thousand Mann Act convictions over the next decade, a majority of which were non-commercial.

The Mann Act was the real beginning of the Bureau of Investigation (later, the F.B.I.), which then used Prohibition to extend its power. The bureau secured five thousand Mann Act convictions in the 1920s. Bureau chief J. Edgar Hoover personally led mass raids, and acquired information that compromised public officials. The act (like the income tax laws) was used to get gangsters who could not otherwise be convicted, and often targeted blacks who traveled with white women (most notably black heavyweight champion Jack Johnson), political dissidents, and other unpopular minorities.

The Mann Act showed how far the federal police power had been extended. Federal power “to regulate commerce among the states” had been extended to moral regulation, and might therefore be extended to any other kind of regulation. This went beyond the attempt to prohibit interstate shipment of things, as Attorney General Philander Knox put it, “noxious or dangerous in themselves,” which had heretofore been widely regarded as the limit of the police-power extension of the commerce power. In the Mann Act, there were neither things nor commercial activity involved. Chief Justice John Marshall provided a famous definition of what “commerce among the states” meant in 1824. Commerce, he said, “undoubtedly, is traffic, but it is something more: it is intercourse.” Only the most extravagant extension of this definition of commerce could reach cases like that of Caminetti, of consensual if illicit trysts. After the New Deal swept away the last vestiges of constitutional limitations on Congress’ powers, later legislators would not even bother to give pretexts to their attempts to regulate gun possession, domestic violence and, now, health care.

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Tags: Commerce Clause, Congress, federal law, federal power, federalism, john marshall, Mann Act, police power, prostitution, white slave act Posted Sep 15th 2010 at 4:52 am in Congress, Featured Story, History, Justice/Legal, Regulation | Comments (64)

Comments (64) Login Sort by: Date Rating Last Activity

Yngblkcons 92p · 36 weeks ago +12

Interesting article. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Reply 2 replies · active 36 weeks ago Report

KristineFromNYC 108p · 36 weeks ago +7

Typical politicians, give them an inch, they want a mile. Great article, and an excellent starting point to the departure from the Constitution. Then the 17th Amendment was the next biggest K.O.

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Cowboy Logic 140p · 36 weeks ago +9

Consequently, if I am reading the article correctly, would the author suggest that in order to Save the Constitution, and the Republic, We should seek a repeal of the Mann Act, and unwind ourselves from these consensual illicit trysts? http://biggovernment.com/pmoreno/2010/09/15/how-prostitution-killed-the-constitution/ Page 2 of 11 » How Prostitution Killed the Constitution - Big Government 5/29/11 5:40 PM

a repeal of the Mann Act, and unwind ourselves from these consensual illicit trysts?

Using the authors words, of consensual illicit trysts, what then would the word be for "non-consensual"...... ?

Reply 4 replies · active 36 weeks ago Report

rckmom 119p · 36 weeks ago +6

Politicians have been trying to derail prostitution, since the conception of this country...it's a world wide 'trade' and I don't see anyone completely dismantling it...that said, the politicians seem to get a lot of 'play' out of the oldest profession!

Reply 1 reply · active 36 weeks ago Report

JohnnyKnoxs 95p · 36 weeks ago +14

If the States get desperate enough for tax revenue, they may all one day legalize and tax prostitution.

Ultimately, most will alllow marijuana, like gambling boats, not for freedoms sake, but to tax.

Reply 6 replies · active 36 weeks ago Report

wldbil 117p · 36 weeks ago +5

Thank you Dr. Moreno, an excellent thought provoking article illustrating what happens once the camel's nose slips under the tent....

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Gary__K 117p · 36 weeks ago +6

Phone home.....Eliot kind of looks like ET.

He is as corrupt as they get.

Hey Eliot, how are your morals working out for you now?

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A_pen 113p · 36 weeks ago +3

Tell me, why does the federal government need to claim supervisory power over state law?

In most instances the simple fact a precedent may be set in any state and tested in circuit courts for common sense and legal neccessity which does not require a federal intrusion at all is all that is needed to create a uniform protection from any act. It would also allow the future discernment of those other natural rights the government is loathe to allow us to define.

Since the feds are peeing up our rope full stream, as they're naturally inclined to want, it is about time we turn them into the wind.

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Kit 111p · 36 weeks ago 0

It's ok if Dems do this sort of thing but it's a MAJOR crime if a rep even THINKS about doing it.

I found this article from an African Newspaper last night from feb 2008, I've never been a "birther" because I've always felt that there were bigger issues at hand but this article might just change my mind. I came across it purely by accident while looking for something else. There is a link listed along with the screen shot. http://www.boomfox.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=5...

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LibertyWriter 107p · 36 weeks ago +3

I believe we need a Constitutional Review Committee to look at unconstitutional decisions of the Supreme Court and reverse them.

Reply 2 replies · active 36 weeks ago Report

Stan522 108p · 36 weeks ago +4

I've always called congress a bunch of whores and a great article about our demise. Now let's change it!

Reply 1 reply · active 36 weeks ago Report

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Dave_in_Ok 104p · 36 weeks ago +3

So can we use this to get rid of the whores in congress? No - well that's OK November is almost here!

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kasteer 101p · 36 weeks ago +3

Perfect example of growth. EVERY aspect of government does one thing... GROW. NO department of government stays the same size, or gets smaller. Every department has a natural tendency to grow in scope, in size.... There are NO LIMITS! This is scary.

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45coltauto 92p · 36 weeks ago +3

Military & Law Enforcement Honor Your Oath Defend the Constitution & The People Not Corrupt government & politicians

Sic Semper Tyrannis!

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Shrink the State 101p · 36 weeks ago +1

Dr. Paul Moreno, Thank you for educating us about one of the key origins of the all-powerful Federal Police State that exists today. Seems like the early 20th Century was the heyday for progressive thought and action. This story is exactly what you will never learn from the MSM or from the vast majority of our Academic institutions.

Keep up the good work.

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RUFUS2009 93p · 36 weeks ago +3

Same year as the Titanic sinking....great deal of similarity...both were BELIEVED to be invincible. Pres. Taft and Wilson were greatest American disasters even, until FDR hit the scene and doubled down on progressive socialism programs and destruction of the US Constitution.

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ManassasGrandma 79p · 36 weeks ago -5

I hope this country never legalizes prostitution. It is another form of slavery. A human being should never be bought or sold- even by themselves.

Reply 8 replies · active 36 weeks ago Report

URwhatiswrong 75p · 36 weeks ago -7

I swear you people - your view of the world is like that of a tiny, tiny child - narrow and unrealistic.

Prostitution should be legal as should all drugs.

Not for the nothing but Spitzer was the Wall Street thieves biggest nightmare - so what he was bangin' a ho?

Reply 3 replies · active 36 weeks ago Report

killdevil 106p · 36 weeks ago -4

Spitzer ...... from the ''bunny ranch'' ...... mika ...... tell us about daddy's polish ''sausage''...... uncle jimmy's ''limp' noodle . . . . . cousin amy's hairy legs......

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doowop 87p · 36 weeks ago +1

interesting read. teddy roosevelt got the constitution-killing ball rolling imho.

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gb8898 106p · 36 weeks ago +3

I think we need more prostitutes. Keep the politicians occupied so they're not spending so much time coming up with inventive new ways to screw us.

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mickrussom 95p · 36 weeks ago +2

Any time Maximum Freedom is shot in the head by the traitor rat vermin scum in government liberty dies.

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chelydra 68p · 36 weeks ago +1

Very interesting. My opinion is that much of the world's misery stems from doctrines such as Marxism or Prohibition that mistakenly claim that all evil results from external sources.

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killdevil 106p · 36 weeks ago +1

Spitzer...... mika...... try on this .... ball gag...... is that a , . .. paddle?! oh Elliot......

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Ashrak 114p · 36 weeks ago +2

1913 -

I really despise that year.

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