Essay On The 18th Amendment

On December 16, 1919, however, prohibition became the law of the land in the passing of the 18th Amendment which stated "...the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors ... for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited." (Constitution). This created a mixed bag of reactions by the citizenry.

The Prohibition Amendment took effect on January 16, 1920. The eighteenth Amendment outlawed the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol in the United States until it was repealed on December 5, 1933. The excessive amount of alcohol consumed primarily by men often resulted in violence, poor work performance, and wasteful spending of wages on alcohol, which were needed to support their families. Although the Prohibition Amendment did decrease alcohol-related felonies it created more organized crime and an increase of economic problems.

Between 1900 and 1913 more Americans began to drink more and more alcohol with the production of beer jumping from 1.2 million to 2 billion gallons; three times more alcohol than the average American drinks now.1 Prohibition was a movement sparked by women since women thought they were the ones who suffered the most from the cause of alcohol and women though that alcohol was a threat to a happy family. Women wanted to pass prohibition because many men would go to saloons and go home and be abusive towards their wives and children. Women and other groups eventually got 46 of the 48 states to ratify the 18th amendment on January 16, 1919.2 The 18th amendment on article one says, "...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."3 The first article on the 18th amendment is saying that the sale, making, or even bringing liquor into the United States or any of the United States' territory will now be illegal. Prohibition began to show its weakness right away when the United Sates government did not show much support. After the first year of prohibition the American people started to show less support and even led to organized crime. In 1933, the United States Constitution was amended to repeal the 18th amendment in the form of the 21st amendment.4 Even

In 1919 the Constitution of the United States issued the 18th amendment, enforced into law as the National Prohibition Act of 1920. Prohibition is the banning of the manufacture, sale, and possession of alcohol, including beer and wine. This amendment was repealed with the passing of the 21st amendment to the constitution, allowing the possession of alcohol in the United States. In the City of Washington on Monday, December 5th, 1932 the 21st amendment document included the reestablished rights of the citizens restricted by the 18th amendment. (Appendix II) The 18th amendment was the first and only amendment repealed by the constitution, allowing people to possess, sell, and buy their own alcohol.

Sometimes what we believe is right, can become the complete opposite. On January 16, 1919 the 18th Amendment was passed, but did not come into effect until the following year. This prohibited the manufacturing, distributing, and selling of all alcoholic liquor but didn’t prohibit the consumption of intoxicating beverages. When they first passed this document they believed what they were doing was important. To start off, how did history lead up to the banning of alcohol in all fifty states. Then what issues and questions that they had back then, the debate today, and how it let up to a revolution. Finally, what’s my opinion and how I interpret the amendment and what is happening today that can relate to this.

The 18th Amendment dealt with prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcohol. This amendment was ratified by the U.S. government and was probably one of the most futile proposals they could have ever came up with. The 18th amendment should have never been approved because it just gave Americans an alternative to break the law. Also, the government itself lost a great deal . Americans would ,in a sense, never give up alcholol, leaving the American government helpless with no other decision then to repeal the ban.

There were three main reasons which caused Americans to change their mind about the 18th Amendment: during prohibition the homicide rates increased rapidly, the people who made the laws were disobeying it (many who supported prohibition thought it only applied to hard liquor, not wine and beer too, so many people, even Congressmen continued to drink wine and beer), and bootleggers were selling liquor illegally with no taxes were being collected. The first reason Americans changed their mind on Prohibition was the homicide rates increased rapidly. During the 14 years of Prohibition (1919-1933) the homicide rate per 100,000 people steadily

Economic desperation had no small part in advocacy for repeal of the 18th Amendment. Conservatives who pushed for prohibition in the start of the prohibition movement. This included American farmers who pushed for prohibition and now pushed for repeal because of the negative economic effects on agriculture. Before the 1920’s amendment of the Volstead Act, 14% of federal, state, and local tax revenues were derived from profits of the alcohol industry.

January 1920, the opening year of the 18th Amendment that sought banning “the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors” within the United States and its US territories. Many Americans relate this era with speakeasy, public law breaking, and a public disregard for the establishment of prohibition. The 18th Amendment was the first constitutional amendment that sought to limit the rights of citizens and their rights to drink. This would become an attempt that many would soon come to realize as one of the greatest failures in law enforcement in American History. For if an American wants to drink, those with the American spirit for rebellion will surly offer him one.

The 18th amendment, or the prohibition law was a good and a bad thing for America in many ways. Prohibition was enacted to stop the derotation and violence of men against their wife and kids with the use of alcohol, and many people thought that alcohol was an ungodly corrupted thing in America which is why the 18th amendment was enacted to try to eliminate and dangers of alcohol. Alcohol was prohibited in many states before it became a law in the 1920’s for the whole state. Even though the government and women enacted the 18th amendment to prohibit alcohol to make things better in the US only made things worse and some things good that America’s wouldn’t even know would happen.After America saw what this 18th amendment was doing to the country they saw that it was silly to prohibit alcohol in the first place just to cause a lot of problems in the future which America did unintentionally.

Why would the Congress pass the 19th Amendment if it meant to just give women the right to vote when instead of going around the streets saying they voted, when voting is the job of men? Well not everything involves men, women helped out with a lot of jobs when the men were off to war, the women volunteered to help. That is why the 19th Amendment is important. The 19th Amendment was ratified on August 18, 1920, the Implications, equalizes women, and the current event, with Hillary Clinton and court cases, like Lesser v. Garnett. Therefore, the 19th Amendment is important because it is women's right to vote and this amendment finalizes the equalization of gender, skin color, and race.

The 18th amendment was ratified by congress on January 16, 1919 in which the selling and distribution of “intoxicating liquors” was banned. That was the start of what many called the dry decade in the United States. Norman H. Clark’s Deliver Us from Evil: An Interpretation of American Prohibition illustrates the struggles to make the dry decade possible and the consequences that followed it. The 235 page text describes how the Anti-Saloon League was determined to make prohibition possible and the struggles they had to overcome. As well as what directly followed once it was a reality.

“Prohibition did not achieve its goals. Instead, it added to the problems it was intended to solve.” On 16th January 1920, one of the most common personal habits and customs of American society came to a halt. The eighteenth amendment was implemented, making all importing, exporting, transporting, selling and manufacturing of intoxicating liquors absolutely prohibited. This law was created in the hope of achieving the reduction of alcohol consumption, which in turn would reduce: crime, poverty,

In 1920 the 18th amendment to the U.S. constitution went into effect, banning alcohol and beginning prohibition in America. Its supporters vilified alcohol; they claimed that alcohol was an ineffective way to escape pain, that drinkers were slaves to the drink, and that alcohol causes men to revert back to a brutish state. Fitzgerald, however, uses The Great Gatsby as an argument against prohibition. It defends alcohol, condemns the institutions which support prohibition, and encourages those who are willing to break the law.

On January 19, 1920, the 18th Amendment was instated, which legally prohibited the "manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors" (Document). This law shut down liquor businesses and appears to be banning alcohol in the United States under all circumstances but when analyzed closely, it failed to state that in addition to the ban on the economic side, it was also outlawing the consumption side. The government assumed that due to the widespread knowledge and awareness of the 18th Amendment and its drastic effect on a common material good in society, that the ban on the importation, transportation, and selling of alcohol would indirectly lead to the inability to consume it. This was not the case. A few people discovered the loophole and as a result, the illegal liquor business began booming because though the supply of alcohol decreased, the demand was higher than ever.