Talk:Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution/Archive 1

Archive 1

Questions

Why did they prohibit alcohol ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.83.115.228 (talk • contribs) 23:26, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

• This is the most important question that goes unanswered by the article. Why was this done? Who was for it? Who was against it? What is the history? Surely the whole nation didn't just wakeup one morning and go, "Hey everyone, let's ban booze!" There surely was some lead up to it. This article needs to do more then just give a nod to the one on prohibition, a sign with neon lights needs to be pointed at it. In fact, some of the information in that one might belong here too. -- Cozret (talk) 15:56, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

The article states, "Following significant pressure on lawmakers as a result of the temperance movement..."" That seems pretty clear. This article is about the Amendment itself. I would expect someone interested in the whys and wherefores would go to that article. Perhaps it can be made more prominent (a "see also section, maybe, or a hatnote like the temperance movement has, something like:

See also: Temperance movement

But I wouldn't like to see a discussion of the movement itself imported into this article, which is specifically about the Amendment.TJRC (talk) 18:26, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Why was it an Amendment instead of just a law? Laplie 10:48, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Didn't the 18th Amendment prohibit the manufacture of drinks with an alcohol level over 0.5%? Maybe I'm wrong. But why doesn't this article actually state the main part of the Amendment instead of summarizing it? That would help a lot. Chavila 20:09, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

• The amendment is directly stated in this article. "Intoxicating Liquors" are elsewhere defined as anything with over 0.5% alcohol content, so they didn't need to specify the content within the amendment.Beefpelican (talk) 20:11, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

• The goal of prohibition was to lower crime rates. This worked on the theory that people would commit less crime if they were sober. It was repealed party because it raised crime rates; however, one could aruge that the raise in crime rates was due to more alcohol related offenses than had previously been ileagle. If it was a law rather than an amendment, someone could challenge if it was constitutional, and yada yada yada ACLU wins again. The Volstead Act defined what qualified as a "spirited drink". Mustang6172 06:45, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

It would be useful to have documentary evidence of the rationale specifically for constitutional amendment to be added to the article. 151.148.122.100 (talk) 00:07, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Ratifications

I have been unable to find the states that have ratified it and the states that did not... could somebody find a list or a graphic? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ipodvideo6 (talk • contribs) 19:41, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

"Explicitly modified"

The following statement concerning repeal is demonstrably false: "... making it the only provision in the Constitution to be explicitly modified." For example, Amendment XII modifies Article II, Section 1, the procedure for electing the President and Vice-President; Amendment XVI not only modifies, but specifically negates the provision of Article 1, Section 9 that had prevented Congress from implementing an income tax; Amendment XVII drastically modifies Article I, Section 3, changing the Senate from being a body composed of members selected by State Legislatures to one of Senators elected directly by the people. Any anotated copy of the Constitution will have many more examples of sections footnoted with a reference to the amendments that modified them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.81.49.135 (talk • contribs) 18:25, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

The 21st Amendment modified the 18th explicitly in that it referred to it directly: "The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.". All other modifications have only implicitly modified earlier parts of the Constitution, by simply stating the new policy. Not that it's a particularly important factoid for the article, but it is in fact a true statement. -- χγʒ͡ʒγʋᾳ (talk) 02:16, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Link to U.S. prohibition article

The article presently links in the first paragraph to a general article on prohibition policies (around the globe). Since the 18th Amendment established prohibition in the United States, though, wouldn't it be a good idea to add a link to the article specifically on Prohibition in the United States? If no one objects, I'll take a stab at making the change. Kuribosshoe 06:26, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

• It's in the first paragraph. Beefpelican (talk) 20:17, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

stubs

I removed all stubs. This is an article now. Bearian 21:47, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Connecticut's ratification

The Connecticut government's Constitution website incorrectly lists that it Connecticut did not ratify the 18th amendment [1]. However, all other sites, including the GPO ([2]), list that it ratified it on May 6, 1919. I'm going to stick with the majority of sites and the Federal government's Constitution site, and keep the fact that it ratified the amendment. --CapitalR 16:40, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

What about Illinois?

Where's Illinois? They didn't mention them in the ratification list! —Preceding unsigned comment added by KC109 (talk • contribs) 14:20, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Indiana isn't there either. Zapvet (talk) 15:07, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

The ratification list only includes those states whose legislatures approved the 18th amendment. Not all the states must ratify an amendment. Since the majority had ratified by the deadline (which was unprecedented), no other states were required to ratify. Any further motions passed were merely idealogical and symbolical. --Sid 19:10, 23 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sidnarayanan (talk • contribs)

Connecticut's ratification (correction)

The Connecticut General Assembly website ([3])is correct. Connecticut did not ratify the 18th amendment. Please check the online United States Code Service (Lexis). Lexis has corrected the error. The 2006 edition of the official U.S. Code (to be published in 2008) will also make the change. The USCA will follow the official code and make the change when the 2006 edition was published.

'Update' The GPO has uploaded the pdf files for the 2006 edition of the U.S. Code. Please see this link, http://uscode.house.gov/pdf/Organic%20Laws/const.pdf#page=10, which confirms that Connecticut did not ratify the 18th amendment. I will not edit the main page because my previous edits correcting the Connecticut error have been reverted.

I thought that the following information would be of interest to those that read this page. It was an emailed response by the Connecticut State Library to my question as to whether Connecticut ratified the Eighteenth Amendment:

Senate Joint Resolution 56 of 1919 (the text of which is found in the 1919 CT House Journal on pp. 333-334, but not in the Senate Journal or in our bill archives) proposing ratification of the U.S. amendment by the General Assembly of Connecticut was rejected by the Senate on Feb. 4 and passed by the House on Feb. 11. The House asked for a Committee of Conference to consider it (Feb. 18) and the Senate agreed to the Conference Committee (Feb. 19). On May 6 the Committee of Conference reported that they could not agree, and recommended that “the same” [ie, the inability to agree] be ordered on file in the office of the secretary. The House on the same day accepted this report. So they agreed to disagree, but only the House passed the joint resolution to ratify.

All of which was moot anyway, since the requisite number of states to ratify had been reached in January. On May 9, 1919, the Hartford Courant (p.5) in an article on the final adjournment of the General Assembly for the year said that “Ratification of the national prohibition amendment was denied.”

Nightkey (talk) 02:28, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Who wrote the act?

All the other sources ive seen state that Volstead himself wrote the act. Who really wrote it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.225.90.92 (talk) 23:44, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Not already under the commerce clause?

Congress already knew how to regulate trade and consumption under the Commerce Clause, so why was it insufficient to simply legislate prohibition rather than amending the Constitution? Lupinelawyer (talk) 04:41, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Confusing sentence

The amendment and its enabling legislation the sale and distribution of them in U.S. territory.

What was that supposed to say? As it is, the sentence makes little sense. Stargelman (talk) 09:53, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Reader feedback: Add a part to show how the a...

98.191.187.121 posted this comment on 18 December 2013 (view all feedback).

Add a part to show how the alcohol was transported during that time.

That would probably belong in Prohibition in the United States, not the amendment itself. -- Erik Siers (talk) 01:18, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

...or perhaps Smuggling. -- Erik Siers (talk) 01:22, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Impact

The section on the impact of the 18th amendment is one sided. It leaves out the fact that prohibition did succeed in significantly reducing alcohol consumption, not just during, but after as well. It also overlooks the evidence that though alcohol traffic related crimes had increased, crime as a whole had significantly decreased; especially with the crimes most linked to the effects of alcohol. Furthermore, that it was actually after prohibition ended that there was a real increase in crime. Evidence example; Temperance Facts, compiled by W.G. Calderwood. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yelekam (talk • contribs) 02:03, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Effects

Someone might look at this section, which has, as its sole citation, a booklet published around 1941-44 by the Minnesota Temperance Movement - hardly an unbiased source. Marjaliisa (talk) 01:14, 28 October 2014 (UTC) Oops, sorry, the Impact section is the one I meant..... Marjaliisa (talk) 01:16, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

This has not been addressed but needs to. This is not an RS. Deleting referenced text. Please bring here to discuss if reverted.12.11.127.253 (talk) 20:02, 29 July 2015 (UTC)