Prohibition. a proposal to eliminate alcohol from American soil entirely worked its way onto the stage of congress and passed without delay. That proposal was the 18th amendment. But would the states find it necessary to ratify this amendment?

Authors Avatar
AS and A Level History

Introduction

        From the end of the nineteenth century through the beginning of the twentieth, the issue of excessive alcohol consumption was a source of serious controversy. Saloons, taverns, and the underground sale of alcohol--bootlegging--was said to be “consuming much of the profit” made by the American work force. Those same Americans were said to be suffering from the affects of drinking in the form of poverty and “in the most extreme cases, death.”  In order to combat this problem, the idea of prohibition came into form. The idea was simple; eliminate the businesses that manufactured, distributed, and sell alcoholic beverages, and consumption of alcohol will decrease. As the idea spread across America like an epidemic, soon to be known as the Progressive Movement, increasing numbers of people began to commit themselves to total abstinence-no alcohol whatsoever. As the chain of those committed climbed to the highest offices and linked the highest officials, a proposal to eliminate alcohol from American soil entirely worked its way onto the stage of congress and passed without delay. That proposal was the 18th amendment. But would the states find it necessary to ratify this amendment? Is the need for prohibition so great that America would pass its first amendment to deny a freedom instead of legally allow it?

Background

        Prohibition, in all but name, was attempted more than three hundred years before the eighteenth amendment. In 1629, the Virginia Colony Assembly ruled that "Ministers shall not give themselves to excess in drinkinge, or riott, or spending their tyme idellye day or night."

Followed in 1633 when the Plymouth Colony forbid the sale of alcohol "more than 2 pence worth to anyone but strangers just arrived."  Fines were quickly imposed on public drunkenness, crude behavior, as well as selling the drink without a license, as a means of deterring the unwanted social side affects. It was not until the eighteenth century, however, that there became an attempt to prohibit the manufacture, importation, transportation, sale, and consumption of alcoholic beverages. Politicians soon picked up on the growing demand for temperance, and as such a political party known as the Prohibition Party was formed.

        Created in 1869 as a voice for those who wished to outlaw alcohol, the Prohibition Party “ran its candidates in the presidential election on a platform of universal suffrage, business regulation, public education, encouragement of immigration, and constitutional prohibition.”  Despite the public’s call for a candidate to support their desire for prohibition, the Prohibition Party’s candidate received few votes in the election of 1872. However, by 1884 the second wave of the prohibition had reached its apex and the election results reflected it. The Prohibition Party candidate, John P. St. John, the dry Governor of Kansas, received 24,999 dry votes in the State of New York--votes that would have been mostly Republican. The Republicans lost New York by 1047 votes as well as the election. Yet, by the turn of the century, the Prohibition Party held no real weight in political circles, and gave way to other third parties.

Join now!

        Even without a supportive major political party, prohibitions held fast to the beliefs of temperance and abstinence and sought new means of representation. Several groups advocating prohibition were already in existence near the turn of the century in an attempt accommodate this demand for representation and from the ashes of the Prohibition Party, the prohibitionists learned that their key to success was unity. Thus, the prohibitionists combined their efforts and resources and created a single society: The Anti-saloon league.

        The Anti-saloon league, an organization formed from over one hundred temperance societies, such as the National Temperance Society and Publication House, ...

This is a preview of the whole essay

Prohibition. a proposal to eliminate alcohol from American soil entirely worked its way onto the stage of congress and passed without delay. That proposal was the 18th amendment. But would the states find it necessary to ratify this amendment?
Document Details
Related Essays
Prohibition - The Importance of January 16th 1920 to the US.
Prohibition - The Importance of January 16th 1920 to the US.
To what extent was the failure of prohibition due to the involvement of organized crime?
To what extent was the failure of prohibition due to the involvement of org...
Describe Wilsons Fourteen points, Why did Congress fail to ratify the Peace Settlement?
Describe Wilsons Fourteen points, Why did Congress fail to ratify the Peac...
Explain the principle events of the preceding ten years or so that led the eleven slaveowning southern American states to secede from the union in 1861.
Explain the principle events of the preceding ten years or so that led the...