Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution facts for kids

Ratified on January 17, 1919 and went into effect a year later, the Eighteenth Amendment (Amendment XVIII) of the United States Constitution banned the making, transporting, and sale of alcoholic beverages in the United States. The Volstead Act was passed by Congress to enforce the Eighteenth Amendment. It did not prohibit the drinking of alcohol however. It started the period in American history called the Prohibition Era. This was a period of mass civil disobedience to the law. Those who could afford the higher prices of smuggled liquor went to illegal bars called speakeasies. Working class people tended to drink moonshine and so-called bathtub gin at home. The Eighteenth Amendment proved to be a major failure. Americans started drinking more than before and it caused crime to rise significantly. The Eighteenth Amendment was later repealed by the Twenty-first Amendment. It remains the only amendment to be repealed by another amendment to the Constitution.

Text

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.

Clauses

The first clause, section one, says the law was to go into effect one year from its ratification. It was passed by Congress on December 18, 1917. The thirty-sixth state (required number for passage) to ratify the amendment did so 394 days later on January 16, 1919. The forty-seventh state to ratify the amendment was New Jersey on March 9, 1922. Rhode Island was the only state to reject ratification of the 18th Amendment.

The second clause gave the federal and state governments concurrent powers to enforce the amendment. Congress passed the national Prohibition Enforcement Act, also known as the Volstead Act. The act defined any beverage containing more than one-half of one percent an intoxicating beverage. It gave the Internal Revenue Service the power to enforce the law.

The third clause gave seven years as the time period for the states to ratify the amendment. This is the first amendment to have a limit on the time in which it was to be ratified. If it was not ratified by the required number of states in that time period, the amendment would not go into effect. Article Five of the United States Constitution requires an amendment be passed by three-quarters of the states. (36 out of the 48 states at that time.)

Images for kids

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  The Eighteenth Amendment in the National Archives

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  After the 36th state adopted the amendment on January 16, 1919, the U.S. Secretary of State had to issue a formal proclamation declaring its ratification. Implementing and enforcement bills had to be presented to Congress and state legislatures, to be enacted before the amendment's effective date one year later.

See also

In Spanish: Decimoctava Enmienda a la Constitución de los Estados Unidos para niños