Talk:Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

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[edit] Error

Illinois is not in the list of states who ratified the amendment. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.185.32.152 (talk) 00:17, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Questions

Why did they prohibit alchol ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.83.115.228 (talk • contribs) 23:26, 23 May 2006 (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 It was repealed party because it raised crime rates; however, one could aruge that the raise in crime rates was due to more alcohol related offenses than had previously been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 consitutional, and yada yada yada ACLU wins again. The Volstead Act defined what qualified as a "spirited drink". Mustang6172 06:45, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 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)

[edit] "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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] stubs

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

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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 is 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. Please make the change to this page so that Connecticut is listed correctly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.58.227.114 (talk) 16:18, 15 January 2008 (UTC)


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)

[edit] 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)