The 18th Amendment

The 18th amendment  was the prohibition in the united states.  Prohibition is the practice of prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, import, export, sale, and consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages.  This amendment was passed by congress on December 18th, 1917.  As said before, to add an amendment to the Constitution there must be at least 3/4 of the states that ratify the amendment.  Out of the fifty states forty-six of them ratified this amendment.  The amendment got 3/4 votes on january 16th, 1919.  The last amendment that deal with changing social values repeals this amendment.  Repeal is when an amendment gets removed from the constitution.

In the Constitution it reads, "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."  This quote basically states that alcohol in the United states is now illegal and there shall be no sales of the product or importation of it.  Another qiote is, "The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation." As said in the last text of amendment 13, this quote gives Congress and all the states that have ratified the power to change the amendment.  The last quote that was said is, "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."  This quote can be summed up as saying that the amendment will be active and cant be changed, unless Congress and the several states have another voting (ratify) to change or repeal the amendment.  all this must be done within seven years.

The impact this amendment had on the United states was not so good.  When prohibition began, Mafia leaders found this as an opportunity to make money by selling the liquor and alcohol illegaly.  This effected the crime rate and that rate was rising fast.  Mafia leaders, most notably Al Capone began to control enormous empires, developing production, transportation, and retail institutions to get their product to market.  people did not see this as an illegal act becuase they thought acohol was a victimless crime an they were getting just what they wanted.  The outcome of all this was that the mafia grew much wealthier, stronger, and more established.  When the 21st amendment repealed the 18th, that was when the government could take control of these organizations that were selling alcohol illegaly.  As you can see the impact of this amendment was not so good for the government and crime rate.

Resources:

• http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters.constitution
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/eighteenth amendment