Twenty-First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States repealed the Eighteenth Amendment , which provided for the national prohibition of alcoholic beverages starting in 1920. The 21st Amendment was proposed on Feb. 20, 1933, and ratified on Dec. 5, 1933.
The amendment
was set forth in three sections.
The first section states, “The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.”
The second section states, “The transportation or importation into any state, territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.” This section promised federal help to “dry” states enforcing their own laws.
The third section states, “This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several states, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the states by the Congress.”
Twenty-First Amendment provisions.
The 21st Amendment repealed the 18th Amendment, ending the Prohibition Era. The 21st Amendment clarifies that states have the authority to regulate liquor within their borders. The amendment also allows laws regulating the sale and production of liquor to vary from state to state. The Supreme Court of the United States has held that the 21st Amendment does not authorize states to violate other constitutional provisions. Consequently, the court struck down state laws establishing a minimum age for drinking alcoholic beverages that discriminated based on gender. In the early 2000’s, it also held that states cannot discriminate against out-of-state producers of alcoholic beverages. In addition, the court held that the 21st Amendment did not block Congress from requiring states to raise their drinking age to 21 as a condition of receiving federal highway funds. So, although the 21st Amendment prevents Congress from directly regulating the sale of liquor in individual states, it does not stop Congress from using its spending power to do so indirectly.
History.
The 21st Amendment repealed the 18th Amendment—the only amendment to the U.S. Constitution that has ever been repealed. The 18th Amendment had caused the use of alcoholic beverages to decline sharply. However, many people ignored the national ban. They drank illegal beverages supplied by bootleggers. Organized crime profited from the illicit sale of liquor, prompting concern about an increase in crime. Over time, lawmakers came to agree that prohibition was not only ineffective, but also harmful to the rule of law and dangerous to citizens.
The 21st Amendment is the only amendment to be ratified by state conventions. The members of Congress who proposed the 21st Amendment believed that state legislators could be influenced by the political clout of the temperance movement, which opposed the sale of alcoholic beverages. As a result, they chose to ratify the amendment through state conventions instead of state legislatures.
