Constitution
The Eighteenth Amendment: Prohibition
The Eighteenth Amendment banned the manufacture, sale and transport of intoxicating liquors in 1920; the Twenty-first Amendment repealed it in 1933.
The text
Passed by Congress December 18, 1917. Ratified January 16, 1919. Repealed by amendment 21.
Section 1.
After one year from the ratification of this article 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.
Section 2.
The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Section 3.
This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.
Note: Repealed by amendment 21.
In plain English
Section 1. One year after ratification, the "manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors" for beverage purposes, and their import or export, became prohibited throughout the United States.
Section 2. Congress and the states had "concurrent power" to enforce the ban. Congress did so with the Volstead Act of 1919.
Section 3. The Amendment would be inoperative unless ratified within seven years. It was the first to include such a time limit.
The National Archives notes that the Amendment was repealed by the 21st Amendment. It is the only constitutional amendment to have been repealed.
The Amendment banned the commercial trade in liquor, not the possession or drinking of it. Consumption was not made a crime by the Constitution, and the Volstead Act exempted certain uses, such as medicinal and sacramental wine.
What the Founders said
The temperance movement had been a major reform movement since the early 19th century, advanced by churches and by groups such as the Anti-Saloon League and the Women's Christian Temperance Union. Many states and counties had already gone "dry" by the time of the Amendment.
The Founders' generation had no direct experience of national prohibition. The Constitution's text left the regulation of morals, health and trade in local products largely to the states, and the idea that Congress had power to ban the product of an entire industry was a stretch of the commerce power, which is one reason supporters used the Amendment route.
Congress proposed the Amendment in December 1917, and thirty-six states ratified it by January 16, 1919, with the three-fourths needed. It took effect in January 1920.
How the courts have read it
- National Prohibition Cases (1920): the Court upheld the Amendment and the Volstead Act, rejecting arguments that the Amendment was invalid because it was too extensive or because of how it was ratified.
- United States v. Lanza (1922): a person may be prosecuted both by a state and by the federal government for the same liquor offense, without violating double jeopardy.
- Olmstead v. United States (1928): the Court held that wiretapped telephone evidence in a Prohibition conspiracy case did not violate the Fourth Amendment; Katz overruled this decision in 1967.
- Carroll v. United States (1925): officers could search a car for liquor without a warrant if they had probable cause, establishing the automobile exception.
Why it matters now
Prohibition is often called the great constitutional mistake, and the term reflects a real lesson: constitutions are best at structure and rights, and less suited to enforcing a particular social policy. The experiment produced organized crime, widespread disrespect for the law, and corruption of police and officials. The 21st Amendment ended it within fourteen years.
For constitutional purposes, the history proves two points. The Amendment process works as designed in both directions: what the people add, they can remove. And a policy that lacks broad, durable consent cannot be sustained by law alone.
The comparison is made today in debates about drug policy, where the question of how far government can enforce private habits recurs. People with different views draw different lessons, but both sides can learn from the record of 1920 to 1933.