Prohibition repealed why

The era of Prohibition was initiated by the 18th Amendment to the U. The Amendment was a triumph for the long-running temperance movement, which was concerned about the negative moral and health effects of alcohol. Prohibition was popular in rural areas, among Protestants, with employers and among women who had witnessed the damage done to families by alcoholism.

It was most unpopular among city dwellers, Catholics, professionals and workmen. It was never illegal to drink during Prohibition. The 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act, the legal measure that included the instructions for enforcing Prohibition, never barred the consumption of alcohol--just making it, selling it, and shipping it for mass production and consumption. The Cullen-Harrison Act, signed about 10 months before the 21st Amendment was ratified, allowed people to drink low-alcohol content beer and wine.

Incoming President Franklin D. Most of the state legislatures were still heavily in favor of Prohibition, so the passage of the 21st Amendment via the traditional method was unlikely.

Prohibition had become unpopular across the nation because of the rise in crime associated with moonshining and the black market for alcohol. Many of the people who had supported the 18th Amendment discovered that, instead of discouraging the use of alcohol, Prohibition merely sent the consumption of alcohol underground and caused an increase in the number and power of gangsters, who were making hefty profits from illicit alcohol sales. Tennessee was the 19th state to ratify the 21st Amendment during a constitutional convention on August 11, The commission also advised against changing the Volstead Act to permit low-alcohol beer, even with only 2.

One major problem was lack of cooperation from the states. Few states were assisting federal agents in investigating and prosecuting violations of Volstead. Further, corruption was rampant among law enforcement officers in cities and states and among Prohibition agents themselves. Added to that was the difficulty of effectively patrolling almost 12, miles of shoreline on the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf Coast with many inlets and hiding places for smugglers, about 3, miles in the Great Lakes region, plus rural areas with mountains, swamps and forests.

They have not been and are not being enforced. We have prohibition in law but not in fact. The commission cited a series of damning statistics, provided by the Bureau of Prohibition, revealing just how unbridled bootlegging was and the difficultly of controlling illegal liquor in the 48 states.

The number of liquor-producing stills seized went from 32, in to , in The bureau estimated that million gallons of illicit wine and million gallons of beer were produced in At least nine million gallons of industrial alcohol meant to be non-drinkable were diverted by gangsters, for cocktails served in speakeasies, in Meanwhile, the bureau had only 1, agents, investigators and special agents.

The commission recommended that be raised to at least 3, personnel. But importantly, the Wickersham panel advised Congress and the states to pass a modified version of the 18th Amendment, reducing it to a simple paragraph, giving Congress the right to regulate or prohibit manufacturing, transportation of intoxicating liquors within the United States.

In , unemployment more than doubled to 3.