Today’s Document from the National Archives
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Gambling and prostitution also reached new heights, and a growing number of Americans came to blame Prohibition and to condemn it as a dangerous infringement of individual freedom. Ratification was achieved on January 16, 1919 when Nebraska became the 36th of the 48 states to ratify the amendment. On January 29, acting secretary of state Frank L. Polk certified the ratification.
What does the 18th Amendment mean in simple terms?
The 18th Amendment to the Constitution prohibited the "manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors…" and was ratified by the states on January 16, 1919. The movement to prohibit alcohol began in the United States in the early nineteenth century.
On Dec. 5, 1933, Utah became the 36th state to ratify the 21st Amendment, and the 18th Amendment was repealed. The Mafia were protected by crooked police and politicians who were bribed to look the other way. The most notorious of the Mafia dons was Chicago’s Al Capone, who earned an estimated $60 million annually from his bootlegging and speakeasy operations. Income from bootlegging flowed into the old vices of gambling and prostitution, and the resulting widespread criminality and violence added to the growing demand for repeal. Although there were arrests during the 1920s, the Mafia’s lock on bootlegging was only successfully broken by repeal. Consider the sources “The Drunkard’s Progress” and “Celebration of the Iowa Territorial Temperance Society.”Describe the success of the temperance movement, which started in the antebellum period, but did not become federal law until 1919. When it came to its booming bootleg business, the Mafia became skilled at bribing police and politicians to look the other way.
The 16th Amendment to the United States Constitution Explained
Many state legislatures had already enacted statewide prohibition prior to the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment but did not ban the consumption of alcohol in most households. By 1916, 23 of 48 states had already passed laws against saloons, some even banning the manufacture of alcohol. The Eighteenth Amendment banned but did not define “intoxicating liquors.” Some of the members of Congress who had voted for the amendment assumed that it referred to hard liquor and would exempt beer and wine. But the head of the Anti-Saloon League drafted a tough enforcement act, which was then sponsored by the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Minnesota representative Andrew Volstead. The National Prohibition Act, better known as the Volstead Act, defined an intoxicating beverage as anything that contained more than one half of one percent alcohol.
Drinking and alcoholism had declined across the country; all that was needed to maintain the law was increased federal enforcement, not moderation of or full repeal of the law itself. They also took solace in the fact that no constitutional amendment had ever been repealed. Despite the continued strength of the temperance lobby, prohibition had lost its popular support The 18th Amendment by 1933. Though it had reduced alcoholism and drunkenness, it had also created new problems in lawlessness and fortified the system of organized crime. A black market for alcohol sprung up quickly after prohibition went into effect, especially within the mob, and alcohol remained easily accessible to citizens willing to visit a speakeasy or make it themselves.
U.S. Constitution Toolbox
A decision upholding the validity of the Eighteenth Amendment was handed down by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of United States v. Sprague and Howey on February 24, 1931. The report of the Wickersham Commission proposing a revision of the Eighteenth https://turbo-tax.org/ Amendment was transmitted to Congress on January 20, 1931. During the five weeks that elapsed between the two events lively debates on the social, economic, and political aspects of national prohibition took place in Congress and the state legislatures.
This was the first amendment to impose a deadline date for ratification. If ratification did not occur before the deadline date, the amendment would be discarded. After the 36th state adopted the amendment on January 16, 1919, the U.S. Secretary of State had to issue a formal proclamation declaring its ratification. Implementing and enforcement bills had to be presented to Congress and state legislatures, to be enacted before the amendment’s effective date one year later.
