The Eighteenth Amendment and Prohibition

prev | next

The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.

Prior to its repeal, the Eighteenth Amendment banned the manufacture, sale, or transportation of “intoxicating liquors” for “beverage purposes” within the United States.1 To enforce Prohibition,2 Congress enacted the National Prohibition Act or “Volstead Act.” 3 The Volstead Act forbade, among other activities, the production, sale, transportation, or possession of beverages that contained 0.5% or greater alcohol by volume—a stringent definition of “intoxicating liquors” that encompassed beer and light wines in addition to distilled alcoholic beverages, such as whiskey or gin.4 However, the Act allowed the licensed production, sale, and use of alcohol for certain purposes, subject to valid state or local restrictions.5

The Eighteenth Amendment was the product of nationwide temperance movements that first emerged in the decades after the Founding and steadily grew in influence during the Progressive Era.6 From the Colonial Era to the early 1800s, many Americans viewed moderate alcohol consumption as a normal aspect of life.7 Early Americans, including many of the Founders, drank, purchased, or manufactured large quantities of alcoholic beverages.8 However, as Americans’ consumption of hard liquor increased significantly from the 1790s to the 1830s, Protestant Christians, concerned about alcoholism’s effects on society, formed some of the first temperance groups.9

In the decades leading up to the Civil War, temperance groups adopted an increasingly stringent attitude toward alcohol consumption and successfully pressured some states to enact laws prohibiting the liquor trade.10 However, as the nation became embroiled in disagreements over the issue of slavery, Americans’ interest in the temperance movement waned, and many state legislatures repealed or weakened their prohibition laws.11

After the Civil War, the temperance movement again surged in popularity as the nation grappled with rapid industrialization and urbanization.12 The organization most responsible for the Eighteenth Amendment’s proposal and ratification was the Anti-Saloon League.13 Founded in 1893, the League engaged strategically with Protestant churches and both of the major political parties, publishing political pamphlets and giving speeches in support of Prohibition.14 One of the League’s most prominent leaders, Wayne B. Wheeler, directed the organization’s lobbying and fundraising efforts, which targeted politicians at all levels of government nationwide.15

By 1917, the proliferation of state prohibition laws and Congress’s enactment of wartime restrictions on the production and sale of alcoholic beverages had laid the foundation for nationwide Prohibition.16 With the Anti-Saloon League’s political influence at its peak, a wave of “dry” candidates swept into Congress in 1916.17 On December 18, 1917, Congress proposed the Eighteenth Amendment.18 Although Congress imposed a seven-year deadline on the Amendment’s ratification, the requisite three-fourths of the states approved it in little more than a year.19 On January 29, 1919, Acting Secretary of State Frank L. Polk certified that the Amendment had been ratified on January 16, 1919.20 By its terms, the Amendment did not become effective until January 17, 1920, which was one year after the states ratified it.21

1: U.S. Const. amend. XVIII, § 1. The Amendment also forbade the importation of beverage liquor into the United States or its exportation therefrom. Id. For additional background on the history of the Eighteenth Amendment, see Amdt18.1 Overview of Eighteenth Amendment, Prohibition of Liquor.
2: The Eighteenth Amendment granted Congress and the state legislatures “concurrent power” to enforce Prohibition by enacting “appropriate legislation.” U.S. Const. amend. XVIII, § 2. The Supreme Court held that the Eighteenth Amendment gave the federal government broad power to enforce Prohibition, even with respect to activities conducted within a single state, such as the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages. See National Prohibition Cases, 253 U.S. 350, 387 (1920). The Court also confirmed the states’ power to augment the federal government’s enforcement efforts with potentially stricter requirements by targeting aspects of the liquor trade that fell within state jurisdiction. E.g., Vigliotti v. Pennsylvania, 258 U.S. 403, 407–09 (1922). For more information, see Amdt18.8 Federal and State Enforcement Powers.
3: Volstead Act, ch. 85, tit. II, § 3, 41 Stat. 305, 308–09 (1919) (effective Jan. 17, 1920), repealed by Liquor Law Repeal and Enforcement Act, ch. 740, tit. I, § 1, 49 Stat. 872, 872 (1935). The National Prohibition Act was popularly known as the Volstead Act because Representative Andrew John Volstead of Minnesota, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, sponsored and promoted the Act. Shortly after the Twenty-First Amendment’s adoption, Congress repealed federal prohibition laws in various districts and territories. See, e.g., Act of April 5, 1933, ch. 19, § 2, 48 Stat. 25, 25 (District of Columbia); Act of January 24, 1934, ch. 4, § 2, 48 Stat. 319, 319 (District of Columbia); Act of March 2, 1934, ch. 37, § 1, 48 Stat. 361, 361 (Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands); Act of March 26, 1934, ch. 88, §§ 1–3, 48 Stat. 467, 467 (Hawaii); Act of June 19, 1934, ch. 657, §§ 1–3, 48 Stat. 1116, 1116 (Panama Canal Zone).
4: Volstead Act § 3, 41 Stat. at 308–09.
5: Id. §§ 3–7, 41 Stat. at 308–11 (allowing licensed manufacture and use for certain industrial, medicinal, religious, and scientific purposes); McCormick & Co. v. Brown, 286 U.S. 131, 133, 141, 143–45 (1932) (referencing the Tenth Amendment when upholding a West Virginia law that required nonresident companies to obtain state permits before shipping alcoholic “preparations” to West Virginia dealers, regardless of whether the nonresidents held federal permits authorizing shipment). The Volstead Act did not specifically prohibit drinking or purchasing alcoholic beverages, and it allowed the private possession and consumption of legally acquired intoxicating beverages. See Volstead Act § 33, 41 Stat. at 317; United States v. Farrar, 281 U.S. 624, 634 (1930) (confirming that the Volstead Act did not criminalize the purchase of alcoholic beverages).
6: See Amdt18.2.2 Temperance Movements of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. The Progressive Era, which lasted from the 1890s to the 1920s, was a period of increased political activism and social reform in the United States. See Progressive Era to New Era, 1900–1929: Overview, Libr. of Cong., https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/united-states-history-primary-source-timeline/progressive-era-to-new-era-1900-1929/overview/.
7: See Amdt18.2.1 Alcoholic Beverages in Colonial America.
8: See id.
9: See Amdt18.2.2 Temperance Movements of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.
10: See id. Early temperance groups also convinced some states to adopt other “prohibitory measures,” including “high license” laws that imposed large fees for selling alcoholic beverages and “local option” laws under which “local political units [were] permitted to decide whether[, or under what terms,] licenses to sell liquor should be granted.” Clark Byse, Alcoholic Beverage Control Before Repeal, 7 Law & Contemp. Probs. 544, 558 (1940).
11: See Amdt18.2.2 Temperance Movements of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.
12: See Amdt18.2.3 Post-Civil War Temperance Organizations.
13: See id.
14: See id.
15: See id.
16: See Amdt18.3 Early Federal and State Prohibition Laws. Responding to concerns that late nineteenth-century Supreme Court decisions interpreting the Commerce Clause would prevent “dry” states from enforcing their prohibition laws fully, Congress enacted statutes that specifically subjected imported alcoholic beverages to state regulation. See id.
17: See Amdt18.3 Early Federal and State Prohibition Laws.
18: See id.
19: See id.
20: See id.
21: See id.