Prohibition: The 18th Amendment

“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.”

Historical Context

• Proposed: December 18, 1917.
• Ratified: January 16, 1919.
• Repealed: Yes, by the Twenty-First Amendment (1933).
• Why It Was Passed:
  • Driven by the temperance movement, which argued alcohol caused poverty, crime, and family breakdown.
  • Groups like the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League lobbied hard for a ban.
  • Seen as a Progressive “moral reform.”
• Enforcement: Congress passed the Volstead Act (1919) to enforce it.

Takeaway: Prohibition was the first (and only) attempt to ban a widely used consumer product nationwide by constitutional amendment.

Simplified Breakdown

1. Ban on Alcohol
   Translation: No making, selling, transporting, importing, or exporting alcohol for drinking.
2. Enforcement Power
   Translation: Congress and states could pass laws to enforce the ban.

How It’s Treated Today; Consequences

• Widespread Noncompliance: Americans kept drinking, often through speakeasies and bootlegging.
• Organized Crime: Prohibition fueled gangs and mobsters like Al Capone, who made fortunes from illegal alcohol.
• Lost Tax Revenue: Before the income tax, alcohol taxes were a major revenue source, the federal government gave this up.
• Public Health: Alcohol consumption initially dropped, but rebounded as black-market liquor spread.
• Law Enforcement: Courts and police were overwhelmed with Prohibition cases, leading to corruption and selective enforcement.

How It Should Be Viewed

• The 18th showed the limits of legislating morality; banning alcohol didn’t eliminate demand.
• It created more crime and corruption than it solved.
• It remains a cautionary tale about using constitutional amendments for social experiments.

Core Idea

The Eighteenth Amendment was America’s great social experiment, an attempt to create virtue through law. Instead, it fueled crime, corruption, and defiance, proving that banning deeply rooted human behaviors often backfires.

Was Prohibition a noble but failed experiment in protecting society, or proof that government should never try to legislate morality.