The Eighteenth Amendment – Prohibition

In the early 20th century, a temperance (anti-alcohol) movement was sweeping the nation. In 1917, temperance advocates persuaded Congress to pass a constitutional amendment giving the federal government the power to ban the possession and sale of intoxicating beverages. The Eighteenth Amendment was added to the Constitution in 1919. To date, it has been the only ratified amendment ever to address a specific policy issue.

Thus was born the period known as Prohibition. Over the course of time, most people came to believe that Prohibition was a bad idea because it caused several problems:

• Prohibition created a thriving black market for "bathtub gin" and other illegally distilled alcoholic beverages, turning ordinary citizens who continued to consume alcohol into criminals.
• It led to a significant increase in organized crime, as criminal entrepreneurs sought to control the black market in illegal liquor.
• This increase in crime also led to additional expenses for the federal government, which had to create new law enforcement agencies to enforce the Eighteenth Amendment and to combat organized crime.

As a result of problems such as these, in 1933 the Eighteenth Amendment banning alcohol was repealed by the Twenty-First Amendment -- making the Eighteenth Amendment the only amendment in American history to be repealed. Many people have interpreted the failure of prohibition to mean that the Constitution should not be used as a code for regulating moral conduct.