18th Amendment
Published on Nov 18, 2015
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PRESENTATION OUTLINE
THE 18TH AMENDMENT
SHYANNE SPIVEY
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.
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Section 2. The Congress and the several states shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
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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.
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On January 16, 1920, the 18th amendment to the Constitution was ratified, which prohibited "the manufacturing, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquors." This amendment stated that no alcoholic beverage could be sold, manufactured, imported or exported legally in the U.S. Soon after, the Volstead Act was written so that medicinal alcohol could still be used. It classified illegal alcoholic beverages as those that contain more 5% alcohol content.
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Prohibition was a movement started by the Protestants and women's groups who wished to eliminate the consumption of alcohol in the United States. By 1830, the American population consumed 7.1 gallons of alcohol per capita on an annual basis. The advocates of Prohibition felt that alcoholism was a problem in America that couldn't be cured unless enforcement was put in place by the government.
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There were many people who didn't agree with prohibition. Yet by the beginning of the twentieth century, more and more recognized the problems that arose from alcohol consumption. Employers were forced to pay the many liquor related accidents that occurred at work. Alcohol had become so deeply integrated into American society that there were more saloons than schools, libraries, hospitals, theaters, parks or churches.
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Andrew Volstead was the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and it was his duty to bring a sponsored bill on Prohibition before Congress. He wrote the National Prohibition Act which is often referred to as the Volstead Act. Volstead was in favor of prohibition. Interestingly, in the election after Prohibition had been enforced, Andrew Volstead was NOT reelected. Maybe that tells us how his constituents felt about prohibition.
Prohibition led to a vast increase in the federal government’s crime-fighting role and in the workload of the federal courts. The Eighteenth Amendment granted Congress and the states “concurrent power to enforce this article.” The architects of national Prohibition anticipated that the states would assume the burden of enforcement, but, in practice, much of the responsibility fell on federal officials. Prohibition enforcement required an unprecedented scale of federal policing, which soon produced an overwhelming number of criminal prosecutions in the federal courts.
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Prohibition cases averaged close to two-thirds of all U.S district court cases. The number of criminal cases handled annually by the federal district courts grew from 54,487 in 1921 to 92,174 in 1932.
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The 18th amendment gave rise to the gangsters of the 1920s that made a huge profit selling illegal alcohol. Such was this disaster that the government would finally agree to get rid of Prohibition and the 18th amendment ten years later.
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Crime became so organized because "criminal groups organized around the steady source of income provided by laws against victimless crimes such as consuming alcohol". As a result of the money involved in the bootlegging industry, there was much rival between gangs. The profit motive caused over four hundred gang related murders a year in Chicago alone.
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By the late 1920's more than 1 million gallons of bootleg liquor had been illegally brought into the United States. Most of the alcohol came in either through Canada or from ships that were located just beyond U.S. waters. However, there was alcohol being produced legally in the United States that was also being bootlegged.
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Alphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone was an American gangster who attained fame during the Prohibition era. His seven year reign as crime boss ended when he was 33 years old.
"The amendment worked at first, liquor consumption dropped, arrests for drunkenness fell, and the price for illegal alcohol rose higher than the average worker could afford. Alcohol consumption dropped by 30 percent and the United States Brewers' Association admitted that the consumption of hard liquor was off 50 percent during Prohibition." However, as time progressed, the statistics would change.
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Police funding: INCREASED $11.4 Million
Arrests for Prohibition Violations: INCREASED 102+%
Arrests for Drunkenness and Disorderly Conduct: INCREASED 41%
Arrests of Drunken Drivers: INCREASED 81%
Thefts and Burglaries: INCREASED 9%
Homicides, Assault, and Battery: INCREASED 13%
Number of Federal Convicts: INCREASED 561%
Federal Prison Population: INCREASED 366%
Total Federal Expenditures on Penal Institutions: INCREASED 1,000%
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The case of Roy Olmstead reflected many of the challenges confronting the federal judicial system during national Prohibition. Olmstead ran a large bootlegging operation, importing liquor from Canada and selling it throughout Seattle, Washington. His illegal business was protected by the local police and employed a workforce at least three times the size of the federal unit responsible for enforcing Prohibition in the area.
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