The Eighteenth Amendment to the US Constitution
National Prohibition of Intoxicating Alcoholic Beverages
Aug 25, 2009
The controversy over the consumption of alcohol started well before 1851, and Georgia had banned alcohol in 1735, but that experiment was abandoned in 1742. With the Maine ban in 1851, a century old movement gained traction and by 1855 twelve other states had also banned alcoholic beverages. States that had banned alcohol became known as “dry” States and States that allowed the manufacture, sale and consumption of alcohol became known as “wet” States.
Temperance Efforts Interrupted by the Civil War
The Civil War interrupted efforts to ban alcohol, but afterward groups like the National Prohibition Party, Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and Anti-Saloon League, gained strength. These and other groups were part of the Temperance Movement, which promoted varying regulations upon alcohol ranging from sales limitations to total bans. By 1890 the National Prohibition Party had elected its first member of Congress. By 1920, 33 of the then 48 States had become dry.
Court Decisions Interfere with Policies of the Dry States
Tension had been building between the Wet States and the Dry States. Dry States not only banned the manufacture of alcohol, but also its importation into the Dry States. A series of Supreme Court decisions, particularly Bowman v. Chicago & Northwestern Railway Co. in 1888 and Rhodes v. State of Iowa in 1898 found many of these laws unconstitutional as violations of the Constitution’s Commerce Clause. For the leaders of the Temperance Movement, the next logical step was to amend the Constitution.
Political Action to Make Prohibition National
Political action ensued and when the 65th Congress convened in March, 1917, the number of congressmen subscribing to the policies of the dry states stood at 278 and the number supporting the policies of the wet states shrank to 126. The time was right to send a constitutional amendment to the States.
Eighteenth Amendment, the Prohibition Amendment, Proposed and Ratified
On December 17, 1917 the House passed a resolution to amend the Constitution and on December 18, 1917 the Senate followed suit. The proposed Eighteenth Amendment read:
“Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.
Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.”
There were 48 States at that time and ratification required approval by 36 States. On January 16, 1919, the number 36 was reached with the ratifications of Nebraska, North Carolina, Utah, Missouri and Wyoming. One year later, by the terms of Section 1, the Eighteenth Amendment became effective.
Congress Passes the Volstead Act
The forces for Prohibition had won a great victory. On October 28, 1919, Congress overrode President Wilson’s veto and enacted the Volstead Act, prohibiting the manufacture, sale or importation of intoxicating beverages containing an alcohol content of greater than .5%.
Twenty-First Amendment Repeals the Eighteenth
The effects of Prohibition had largely been unanticipated. Americans flouted the law and organized crime gained a significant foothold in the United States by finding ways to sate the American taste for alcohol. After having given rise to the likes of Chicago’s Al Capone, the Eighteenth Amendment in 1933 became the only constitutional amendment to be explicitly repealed by the adoption of the Twenty-First Amendment.
 |
