Dbq Essay On The 18th Amendment

While temperance organizations praised the passing of the 18th amendment as a moral victory and the result of a long battle, many people were not so happy. Most citizens saw this law as a violation of their civil liberties and freedom and protests quickly began. Almost just as quickly, criminality began taking the law in their own hands as six gunmen hijacked a train and stole $100,000 worth of medicinal whiskey in Chicago.

Until the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment, the Constitution of the United States had retained a certain character which properly belonged to the fundamental form of law of the Republic at the time of its creation. The matters with which it dealt were simply three types. State sovereignty, through the division of powers between the Federal and the State governments, the inalienable rights of the American citizens and the structure of the Federal government itself. These were areas that it was felt by the framers to be of the utmost importance and should be safeguarded from the uncertainty of the majority whim of the time. They believed that there should be no room for doubt in regards to the limits of Federal

I know lots of other students see this amendment flawed simply because you can’t ban alcohol, then maybe even lead that into some fabricated argument about marijuana because this is Arapahoe. Prohibition isn’t some type of morality issue to me, nor supporting it as a device to make you righteous. That being said, I find the presents of alcohol and other feel good drugs in our first world useless. I repeatedly see articles saying how the 18th amendment has done more harm than good, but the level of damages caused by alcohol's influence unprsidenly sets that harm to shame and the ideology of the amendment is the only good. I can go on and on about how pathetic I find people who abuse and rely on its effects, but I will spare you the bantering of my “thinks he’s always right” teenager opinion. I dislike this amendment not because I disagreed with it, but because it failed and will forever be an argument against any future law regarding the usage of alcohol and other recreational drugs.

Imagine going to a Cardinals without buying a beer. That’s what happened when the 18th Amendment or the Prohibition was ratified in 1919. The 18th Amendment made it illegal to sell, manufacture, and transport intoxicating beverages. In 1920 the Volstead Act was passed, defining an intoxicating beverage as anything with more than 1% alcohol. Supporters of the amendment were upset with this because they thought an intoxicating beverage would be defined as hard liquors (gin, whiskey, and vodka.) Three reasons America changed it’s mind about Prohibition were bad economic consequences, crime and corruption, and lack of enforcement.

The Eighteenth Amendment, created during President Wilson Era, prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol. The Eighteenth Amendment was created because of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) that said that drinking alcohol causes a lot of problems in the society, but the WCTU couldn't establish any law for the prohibition of alcohol. So the Anti-Saloon League (ASL) was created to advance the ideas of the WCTU. The ASL convinced politicians to support the Women’s Christian Temperance Union using pressure politics. Finally, on January 17th, 1920, Eighteenth Amendment was created to prohibit the commerce of alcohol. With this Amendment, the quantity of deaths, suicides, traffic accidents, family arguments, aggression

Prohibition was passed as the 18th amendment, that importing, exporting, transporting, and manufacturing of alcohol was to be put to an end. Prohibition did not achieve its goals. Instead, it added to the problems that it intended to solve. It was expected that the decrease in alcohol consumption would in turn reduce crime, poverty, death rates, improve the economy, and the quality of life.

January 1920, the opening year of the 18th Amendment that sought banning “the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors” within the United States and its US territories. Many Americans relate this era with speakeasy, public law breaking, and a public disregard for the establishment of prohibition. The 18th Amendment was the first constitutional amendment that sought to limit the rights of citizens and their rights to drink. This would become an attempt that many would soon come to realize as one of the greatest failures in law enforcement in American History. For if an American wants to drink, those with the American spirit for rebellion will surly offer him one.

The Eighteenth Amendment made alcohol illegal. However, this amendment was not being forced. So congress put out a law, called the Volstead Act, to allow law enforcement to use force to enforce the eighteenth amendment.

The amendment prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol in the United States, and the prohibition era began. Many believed that the 18th amendment violated their civil and personal liberties. They felt that government intervention was wrong and that they should not have the power to dictate what people could consume. After the ratification of the 18th amendment, the government had to find a way to enforce prohibition. In 1919 Congress passed the National Prohibition Act, also known as the Volstead Act, named for Andrew Volstead, a congressman from Minnesota who was the pushing force for its development and passage.

George Remus’s illegal bootlegging industry and his trial were direct results of the 18th amendment. In attempts to reduce crime and the “evils” of alcohol in the 20th century, the national prohibition act was established without the thought-out reprimands. George Remus is a direct example of the reverse affects that prohibition had on the United States. As crime increased due to this new law, people began to see how much more trouble, crime, hatred, and destruction prohibition had caused. If it were not for prohibition, the illegal possession of alcohol would not be present and the number of criminals and delinquents would not have been as significant. People’s need to make money and their personal desire to drink alcohol backfired on the government. The 21st amendment was seen as a way to make peace, which was what was intended of the 18th amendment but it was

The 18th amendment was the banning of making, selling, distribution, and possession of alcohol. This amendment was ratified on January 29th, 1919(Rebman9). Many people were for the ratification of the 18th amendment, many were also against the ratification. This ratification however caused for the modifying of cars to run faster which would lead into running from the cops. The people who ran from cops were usually delivering alcohol to places or people. There were also secret bars, and places to hangout to drink alcohol without cops knowing known as “speak easies”. Speak easies were hidden on side-streets, or alleyways in underground buildings or dugout buildings. This helped raise the crime rates

The Prohibition was the time period in which the 18th amendment was in order. The 18th amendment prohibited the sale, manufacturing, and transportation on intoxicating liquors. Many people were upset with this law but very few people listened to the law. This law caused many problems including bootlegging, organized crime, smuggling, and trafficking of alcohol. With all these problems the law caused more problems than it solved.

The 18th amendment gave opportunities for gangsters, such as Al Capone, to make money selling liquor in speakeasies, or illegal bars during prohibition. Crime involving gangsters increased during the Prohibition Era and even ended up with a massacre, known as the St. Valentine’s day massacre, which was a massacre between the gangs of Bugs Moran and Al Capone (“21st Amendment”). Not to say these gangsters didn’t exist before the Prohibition, but the Prohibition did aid them in organized crime. Not only were gangsters a problem, but public officials were also extremely corrupt (Notes). One example in Edgewater, New Jersey, the mayor, chief of police, a sergeant, two detectives, and a U.S. customs inspector had a rumrunner pay them $61,000 to help land liquor worth one million dollars (Hanson “Effects of Prohibition”). Another great problem is a loss of revenue for the government. With alcohol being illegal, the government can no longer collect tax for alcohol and collect a profit. This is a huge problem because the government needed money to aide for the Great Depression, which was a huge economic depression worldwide (Hanson

“For those Americans who did not want to go to the effort of making their own liquor, an army of bootleggers, moonshiners, and rumrunners was available to supply the nation with all the booze its citizens could drink” (Hanson). Americans could just buy alcohol from bootleggers, moonshiners, and rumrunners if they did not want to make it themselves because they could find an alcohol seller anywhere. “The Eighteenth Amendment was intended to reduce drinking by abolishing the businesses that made and sold alcohol: breweries, distillers, winemakers, wholesale sellers, and retail establishments such as saloons” (Hanson). The Eighteenth Amendment was made to stop alcohol from getting on the streets but it did no use so they got rid of the Eighteenth Amendment. The temperance movement and the prohibition on alcohol helped stop most of the drinking in the United States of America.

In the same year, the Congress submitted the 18th Amendment. This had banned the manufacture, transportation, and sale of intoxicating liquors, for state ratification. Even though the Congress had stipulated a seven-year time limit for the process. The amendment had received support of the necessary three-quarters of US states in only eleven months.