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1933-12-15: 21st Amendment to the US Constitution repeals prohibition - HiPo > .
By the late 19th century the temperance movement in the United States had grown to include a number of organizations that sought to dramatically reduce and, in some cases, completely stop the consumption of alcohol. It was seen as the root cause of a number of the social problems that activists who flourished in the Progressive Era sought to address.
Although some individual counties and states had begun to introduce alcohol controls, the emergence of the Anti-Saloon League as a national organization saw the arrival of powerful and coordinated lobbying. In 1906 the ASL began a major campaign to encourage states to ban the sale of alcohol by making speeches, taking out advertisements, and staging public demonstrations. All these methods sought to promote the view that prohibition would improve society by eliminating poverty, violence, and antisocial behavior. The campaign also saw occasional violent action by more radical campaigners such as Carrie Amelia Moore Nation who became well-known for vandalizing saloons and smashing kegs of alcohol.
By 1916 almost half the states in America had already introduced laws against saloons. In December the following year the Eighteenth Amendment, which would prohibit the manufacture, sale, or transport of alcoholic beverages, comfortably passed both chambers in Congress. However, it would need to be ratified by at least three-quarters of the states in order to pass into law. It wasn’t until 16 January 1919 that Nebraska became the 36th to ratify the amendment. Nationwide prohibition began on 17 January the following year, and existed until its repeal by the Twenty-first Amendment in 1933.
By the late 19th century the temperance movement in the United States had grown to include a number of organizations that sought to dramatically reduce and, in some cases, completely stop the consumption of alcohol. It was seen as the root cause of a number of the social problems that activists who flourished in the Progressive Era sought to address.
Although some individual counties and states had begun to introduce alcohol controls, the emergence of the Anti-Saloon League as a national organization saw the arrival of powerful and coordinated lobbying. In 1906 the ASL began a major campaign to encourage states to ban the sale of alcohol by making speeches, taking out advertisements, and staging public demonstrations. All these methods sought to promote the view that prohibition would improve society by eliminating poverty, violence, and antisocial behavior. The campaign also saw occasional violent action by more radical campaigners such as Carrie Amelia Moore Nation who became well-known for vandalizing saloons and smashing kegs of alcohol.
By 1916 almost half the states in America had already introduced laws against saloons. In December the following year the Eighteenth Amendment, which would prohibit the manufacture, sale, or transport of alcoholic beverages, comfortably passed both chambers in Congress. However, it would need to be ratified by at least three-quarters of the states in order to pass into law. It wasn’t until 16 January 1919 that Nebraska became the 36th to ratify the amendment. Nationwide prohibition began on 17 January the following year, and existed until its repeal by the Twenty-first Amendment in 1933.
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On 15 December 1933, the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution came into effect, repealing the Eighteenth Amendment which had made the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol illegal.
Some members of the public were consequently willing to break the law, and this ushered in a period of criminal activity focused around the production of illegal bootlegged alcohol. Al Capone, one of prohibition’s most famous gangster bosses, made around $60 million a year from bootlegging alcohol and selling it in so-called ‘speakeasies’.
Izzy Einstein, one of the government’s best-known prohibition agents, demonstrated the scale of the problem facing the authorities who were trying to enforce the ban on alcohol. When visiting New Orleans it took him just thirty-five seconds to obtain liquor after his taxi driver offered him a bottle of whisky.
Combined with the problem of police officers being paid by the criminals to turn a blind eye to illegal activity, prohibition brought lawlessness and corruption to America. In the wake of the Wall Street Crash, repealing prohibition also made sound economic sense as alcohol taxes created a new revenue stream for the government. However, the introduction of the Twenty-first Amendment ensured that individual states were still able to enforce their alcohol laws.
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