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| 21st Amendment to the United States Constitution | |
|---|---|
| Name | 21st Amendment |
| Ratified | December 5, 1933 |
| Repealed | 18th Amendment (repealed Prohibition) |
| Article | Article XXII? |
21st Amendment to the United States Constitution The 21st Amendment is the constitutional provision that ended national Prohibition in the United States by repealing the 18th Amendment and returned regulatory authority over intoxicating liquors to the states. Adopted during the Great Depression era, its passage intersected with the presidencies of Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt, the activities of the Anti-Saloon League, and the cultural shifts marked by the Roaring Twenties, the Temperance movement, and the Volstead Act.
Prohibition emerged from decades of activism by organizations such as the Women's Christian Temperance Union, the Anti-Saloon League, and figures like Carrie Nation, culminating in passage of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and enforcement under the National Prohibition Act. Opposition grew amid enforcement controversies involving agencies like the Prohibition Bureau and events such as the rise of gangsters exemplified by Al Capone and incidents like the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre. Economic stresses from the Great Depression and policy debates in bodies such as the United States Congress and state legislatures, plus campaigning by politicians including John Nance Garner and organizers allied with Franklin D. Roosevelt, built momentum for repeal that led to the 21st Amendment proposal by Congress.
The operative clause of the 21st Amendment expressly repeals the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and contains a unique state-focused provision granting states authority over regulation of alcohol. The Amendment's language, ratified by state conventions and legislatures including those of Michigan, New York, California, and Massachusetts, created legal questions about federal versus state regulatory power involving statutes such as the Federal Alcohol Administration Act and enforcement agencies like the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Congress proposed the 21st Amendment in February 1933, sending it to the states amid political maneuvering in the Seventy-third United States Congress and public advocacy by groups like the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment. Ratification proceeded through conventions in many jurisdictions—a procedural choice influenced by precedent set in the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution—with final ratification achieved in December 1933 when states such as Utah, Oregon, and Washington completed their conventions. The repeal process affected federal law enforcement priorities under administrations in the Roosevelt administration and impacted policy debates in state capitols including Sacramento, California and Albany, New York.
After ratification, implementation fell to state governments and regulatory bodies including state liquor control boards in jurisdictions like Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Virginia, and federal coordination by agencies that later evolved into the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. Enforcement required reconciling prior federal prohibitions such as the Volstead Act with new regulatory regimes, prompting litigation involving commercial actors like brewing companies (e.g., Anheuser-Busch) and distillers, as well as municipal authorities in cities such as Chicago, New Orleans, and New York City.
The Amendment's grant of power to states spawned litigation adjudicated in the Supreme Court of the United States and lower federal courts, producing precedents addressing the scope of state control, interstate commerce, and the Dormant Commerce Clause. Notable decisions interpreting related alcohol regulation touched on doctrines expounded in cases argued before justices such as Charles Evans Hughes and Hugo Black, and involved legal questions similar to those in cases like Granholm v. Heald on wine shipments and later challenges invoking Commerce Clause jurisprudence.
Repeal reshaped political coalitions, influencing parties such as the Democratic Party and the Republican Party and affecting electoral politics in regions like the South and the Midwest. Social consequences included changes in public health policy debated in medical circles associated with institutions like Johns Hopkins Hospital and public debates in publications such as The New York Times and Time (magazine). Repeal altered industries—brewing, distilling, and hospitality—impacting firms including Pabst Brewing Company and associations such as the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States.
Historians and scholars affiliated with universities like Harvard University, Columbia University, and University of Chicago assess the 21st Amendment as a pivotal shift in 20th-century American regulation, highlighting interactions with the New Deal, federalism scholarship, and cultural narratives found in works by authors such as Howard Zinn and David E. Kyvig. The Amendment remains central to debates over state sovereignty, regulatory experiments in states like Nevada and Mississippi, and the evolving balance among federal statutes, administrative agencies, and state law.