21st Amendment Repealed Prohibition 75 Years Ago Today

The 21st Amendment is celebrating a very good year, as it turns 75 years old today. Anyone who likes to take a drink may known that amendment very well, since it is the only reason why they can still drink. Certainly, every booze drinker and person over 18 in the United States had a reason to party when the 21st Amendment was born on December 5, 1933. After that happened, Prohibition died at the ripe age of 14.

The 21st Amendment was created to repeal the 18th Amendment, which was born in 1918 and was designed to bring an end to alcohol. That amendment gave birth to Prohibition, the bygone era that made drinking and making alcohol illegal in the United States. The act had a fair share of backlash.

By 1933, the 21st Amendment was finally passed to end the Prohibition experiment, but it came too late to close the door on what Prohibition created.

The 21st Amendment became necessary after Prohibition led to the rise of gangsters, speakeasies and moonshine. It was the era of Al Capone, Elliot Ness and the other hallmarks of the Untouchables. Murder, death, corruption and more were on the rise as the war over illegal booze became too big to continue.

When FDR first ran for President in 1932, the repeal of Prohibition was one of his main campaign promises. A year later, he got to keep that promise with the creation of the 21st Amendment.

The 21st Amendment was first passed by Congress many months earlier, on February 20, 1933. It was first proposed two months earlier by Wisconsin Senator John Blaine. But it took the rest of the year for states to officially ratify the 21st Amendment.

On December 5, 1933, the 21st Amendment finally had ratification from 36 states, putting it into the Constitution. Roosevelt signed it into law at 7 p.m. that day, and brewers went right back to work.

The 21st Amendment contained three sections. One officially marked the repealing of the 18th Amendment, while the next section gave states the right to make their own alcohol laws, and the third described how the amendment was ratified.

But although the 21st Amendment ended the Prohibition era, it was too late to end the emergence of gangsters, and the violence and corruption that came from the times. Countless users and supporters of legalizing today's illegal drugs are still fighting to get their own version of the 21st Amendment into law someday, as well.

For today, however, alcohol drinkers get to celebrate a milestone in beer history, as they drink to the 21st Amendment.

Sources

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review- "A toast to the 21st Amendment" www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/mostread/s_601517.html

Albany.edu- "Prohibition: The Grand Experiment" www.albany.edu/~wm731882/