The Whiskey Ring Scandal In The 19th Century

6. Whiskey Ring-A group of officers imported whiskey and avoid paying taxes. They basically robbed the Treasury millions of dollars.

Whiskey Ring had the aid of high placed officials in defrauding the government of tax revenues. When Grant received the evidence, he had said in an earlier statement, “Let no guilty man escape.” Grant had blundered in accepting the hurried resignation of Secretary of War William W. Belknap, who Grant had faced impeachment for violating the Tenure of Office Act putting him office when firing Edwin Stanton. Belknap was impeached on charges of accepting bribes; because he was no longer a government official, he escaped conviction. Grant closed out his second term by assuring Congress, “Failures have been errors of judgment, no of intent.”

The prohibition caused much controversy in the 1920’s. The 18th amendment was passed on Jan 16, 1920, it said in Title II, Section 3 the National Prohibition Act states that "No person shall on or after the date when the 18th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States goes into effect, manufacture, sell, barter, transport, import, export, deliver, furnish or possess any intoxicating liquor except as authorized in this act." (United States constitution). The Prohibition opened up many big business opportunities in the illegal marketing of alcohol. The people who took advantage of this opportunity were known as “Bootleggers”. With the enactment of this law organized crime was established, allowing men such as Al Capone to capitalize

The Whiskey rebellion was all about protesting the 1791 federal excise tax. The tax created a burden on the small distilleries mainly run by farmers. This tax was very unpopular and it only took 3 years before the tax led to violence. In 1794 violence broke out in Western Pennsylvania and it was up to the President to do something about it. The farmers not only sold the wisky but often used it as money to not only support their families but help to run their family farms. The trouble began when the farmers and distillery owners began to terrorize and attack the tax collectors and their families. They did not want to pay the tax and had no intention of doing so. Washington as President felt like he had to take action to get them

Beginning in the 1830’s, temperance movements began pushing for abstinence from alcohol. The wartime Prohibition Act was passed in 1918 in order to save grain for the war effort. A year later, the 18th amendment was ratified and went into effect on the federal level. This outlaw of alcohol gave rise to an organized network of crime, including gangsters like Al Capone and speakeasies (Kelly). The Prohibition was meant to keep people away from the negative effects of drinking (Esler, Ellis

It was the beginning of the first formal national movement of the United States and they use their political position to create alcohol laws to regulate the availability of the alcohol.

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.

In 1917 at the start of World War 1, many supported the Anti- saloon league; many brewers had been German immigrants so people claimed that by drinking it would make them traitors. The lack of support for prohibition started to decrease as the violent crimes increased throughout the USA more and more Americans turned against prohibition, the Anti-Saloon League and the Women's Society set up campaigns to end prohibition in the same way they had originally campaigned for it to be introduced. The Anti-Saloon League had a lot of support. The Great Depression helped the case for change.

Protestants, urban political progressives, those of old-world religion, and the women’s temperance unions all agreed upon one thing: the outlaw of alcohol consumption in the United States. For many years, these groups all rallied to have this outlaw take place, this outlaw would later be known as Prohibition. In 1913, crusaders gathered in Washington, they marched and demanded change. In “The War on Alcohol” Lisa McGirr states, “Antiliquor crusaders worked to educate the public about the dangers of alcohol through posters, pamphlets, graphs and charts” (19).  Progressives blamed alcohol for many other “dirty” problems such as domestic violence, gambling and prostitution. What was commonly referred to as the Volstead Act (National Prohibition Act) was sent to the states by Congress on December 18,1917, it was passed on October 28,1919, and ratified on January 16, 1919 and the country went dry one year later when the eighteenth amendment went into effect on January 20,1919. Prohibition was a ban on producing, importing, transporting and selling alcohol beverages. While the goal of the ban was to reduce alcohol consumption and clean up the country, what it really did was cause organized crime to skyrocket, detrimentally affect local and national economies and ultimately cause people to drink a more potent alcohol that was far worse for them.

He had little knowledge of politics, and depended on his fellow politicians. These men, in turn, involved in scandals to embezzle money from the government. One was the Great Mobilier scandal; it dealt with the Union Pacific Railroad. The Construction Company hired themselves at inflated prices to build railroad lines, and distributed shares of stock to congressmen. A scandal during Grant’s second term, was the Whisky Ring. This scandal was uncovered in St. Louis, and consisted of selling whiskey without the excise tax. In return it defrauded the government out of millions of dollars. Belknap was selling goods and trading with the Indians for lower prices.

“America had been awash in drink almost from the start – wading hip-deep in it, swimming in it, and at various times in its history nearly drowning in it.” 1 This quote proves to be correct, embodying American history beginning with the earliest American settlers to the present day. Keeping this fact in mind, how did the Temperance Movement gain enough strength to legally ban the manufacturing, selling, and transportation of alcohol in 1920? Through the determination and stamina of a multitude of factions throughout America from the early to mid 19th century, into the Progressive Era, federal legislation in the form of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America was passed. Beginning in the mid-1800s and

By late 1791, President Washington and his administration had created districts, and assigned revenue collectors, and inspectors. All that needed to happen now was to start collecting the whiskey revenue. This, however, is when the problems started.

The Temperance Movement in Antebellum America was one of the largest moral reforms of in 1800s. Several members of the community fought for the prohibition of alcohol, rather than just limiting the about being consumed. However, “many farmers argued that the society and its desire to eradicate King Alcohol—as temperance advocates often termed alcoholic beverages—were a scheme to deprive the people of their liberty." Starting with main in the 1851, twelve states and territories outlawed the consumptions of alcohol. Temperance leaders came about and the movement created many different temperance groups that later used an assortment of tactics and persuasion to get their points across such as political, art, and even education. “During the first great wave of temperance protest lasting from the 1830s through the 1850s, working-class radicals and union organizers had urged temperance as necessary to both self-improvement and resistance to workplace oppression.”

The Prohibition Era was a period of time when the entire nation was expected to be alcohol-free, or “dry”. In January 1919, prohibitionists achieved the ratification of the eighteenth amendment to the constitution, “forbidding the manufacture, transportation, and sale of intoxicating liquors.” The activists in the Temperance Movement had lobbied and pushed for this ratification for decades. Temperance activists consisted of women, church members, and employers. The main concern was centered around the idea that liquor made alcoholics and irresponsible people. The widespread support for the liquor ban was reflected in its approval by more

     Prohibition had become an issue long before its eventual induction as the 18th amendment in 1920. Organizations came about for the sole purpose of an alcohol free America. In 1833, an estimated one million Americans belonged to some type of temperance association (Behr 12). Many believed the absence of alcohol would help the poor as well as big business. Lower class people would put more money into savings accounts and productivity would increase among workers (Hanson 27). More importantly the “noble experiment”—was undertaken to reduce crime and corruption, solve social problems, and improve the health and hygiene in America” (Thorton 1).