America’s Favorite Addiction As Told By Spencer Tweedy
We the people… is what separates the United States of America from all others. Our constitution, in unison with the Bill of Rights, protects our freedom as not only American citizens, but as humans. And this is what makes our country unique. Other nations have suffered from years or even decades of oppression, and others are not even lucky enough to have the privilege of democracy. Thus, their leaders are appointed utmost power, and rule with the norm of fear and destitution.
Our country’s constitution is the greatest form of law. It creates all high offices of our government, such as the Presidency, Supreme Court, and Congress. The constitution also acts as a safety device, ensuring that our leaders do not become dictators, and our democracy is secure. It was created in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, during the year 1787. The men who created it were named ‘The Framers’. It took the creators four months of debates and arguing to complete. Finally, after numerous compromises, the Constitution was adopted by the United States of America. But before this could happen, nine of the thirteen states were needed to approve the new plan. One of the most famous Framers, Ben Franklin, is said to have thought the Constitution is as perfect as it can be. Negotiations were made common during the ratification period of the Constitution. The Bill of Rights was actually added as a leverage tool to help it pass. And finally, history was made and our future was secured.
The Constitution can be modified by amendments. These amendments must pass Congress in order to be ratified. Once passed, the new law becomes part of our federal constitution, or in some cases, the state’s constitution. The amendment I will be studying is the 18th Amendment.
Alcohol prohibition was a defining time of our history. It was enacted by the 18th Amendment in the year 1917, but did not take full effect till early 1919 and 1920. The proposition of this amendment was influenced by an organization known as the Anti-Saloon League. Though not the majority, but a good number of people were against alcohol use because it caused a lot of bad behavior throughout the country. Nonetheless, the 18th Amendment was extremely unpopular, and conflict arose. Controversy was extremely predictable in this situation. Anything that interferes with an addictive substance, in this case, alcohol, is bound to create dispute.
Here is a copy of the amendment’s text:
Section 1. 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.
Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Section 3. 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.
Theoretically, the Anti-Saloon act and the 18thAmendment together would decrease nation-wide violence tremendously. But because of its lack of popularity, it didn’t last long. And furthermore, the result of this newly imposed alcohol prohibition, there was a surge in organized crime and illegal establishments. Once again, these things were easily predictable, considering that alcohol is known to induce rowdy or wild behavior.
Here’s an article written by John R. Vile, taken from Answers.com. It describes what happened during the case of Dillon v. Gloss, in which Dillon is convicted for violating the 18th Amendment’s law. This article is slightly confusing, so what it exactly tells is unclear.
“256 U.S. 368 (1921), argued 22 Mar. 1921, decided 16 May 1921 by vote of 9 to 0; Van Devanter for the Court. This case involved a conviction for transporting intoxicating liquors in violation of the Volstead Act. Dillon raised two issues. First, he challenged the provision requiring ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment within seven years. Second, he argued that the law under which he was charged was not effective until one year after the Eighteenth Amendment was proclaimed by the secretary of state (and hence after his arrest) rather than one year after its ratification. On the first issue, Justice Willis Van Devanter decided that Congress could set a reasonable deadline so that ratification was “sufficiently contemporaneous … to reflect the will of the people in all sections at relatively the same time period” (p. 375). On the second issue, the Court ruled that the amendment’s date of consummation, not its proclamation, was controlling.
he Eighteenth Amendment was the first to specify a deadline within its text. When the Equal Rights Amendment was proposed, the deadline was placed in an accompanying authorizing resolution that, in a debated move, Congress later extended. Deadlines within the texts of amendments are presumably self‐enforcing. Without distinguishing internal from external deadlines, Dillon v. Gloss ruled that ratifications must be contemporaneous and left to the judgment of Congress. Coleman v. Miller (1939) reinforced and widened Dillon in declaring that the ratification issue was a political question for congressional resolution. Congress exercised its political power in 1992 by certifying as the Twenty‐seventh Amendment a limitation on the timing of congressional pay raises that was originally proposed as part of the Bill of Rights in 1789.” (http://www.answers.com/topic/dillon-v-gloss – John R. Vile)
On December 5, 1933, the 18th Amendment was repealed. In order for it to be repealed, another amendment was put in place to sort of “counter balance” the ever-so unpopular alcohol prohibition. This new counterbalancing amendment was called the 21st Amendment. It was the first amendment ever to repeal another. It took an astonishing thirteen and a half years for it to happen. Alcohol was allowed! I wasn’t there to experience it, but I’m sure that beer-lovers abroad were ecstatic at the announcement.
The drug wars of today are almost an exact parallel of the situation in 1920. The illegality of these substances in both situations created a massive and rich new industry and another problem for the government to fight. I think that this phenomenon could be what is holding the government back from banning other things, such as cigarettes.
My uncle’s home in Los Angeles, California, was featured on the show If Walls Could Talk because of its historical value. The west coast home’s basement was once an illegal bar during the times of alcohol prohibition, and is just one of the many fragments of history we discover every day. Maybe someday meth labs and marijuana dealers’ homes might be featured on television. Or not.
Our past–and future–would be very different without the 18thAmendment. That little stint of alcohol prohibition could very well be what gives millions of children today that one extra social studies lecture. I’d say anything that affects us in such a large scale is definitely worthy of “history made” status. Funny, though, that the same event that caused uprisings in crime nearly ninety years ago is viewed as a study topic today. But now, we end this study of the 18th Amendment with the notion that we the people love beer.
hundred years. I, along with my friends, family, and nation, have recently joined together to fight against oppression, and to spread liberty and independence! The French, our tormentors, are described the same way by all of my people: ugly bastards. They claim their colonization of our country brought civilization to us, but we all know they bring nothing but misery.
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