AMENDMENT 18
Reading edition
PROHIBITION OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS
Page
Validity of adoption 1213
Enforcement 1213
Repeal 1213
PROHIBITION OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS
Amendment 18
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.
Validity of Adoption
Cases relating to this question are presented and discussed under article V.
Enforcement
Cases produced by enforcement and arising under Amendments Four and Five are considered in the discussion appearing under the latter amendments.
Repeal
This amendment was repealed by the Twenty-first Amendment, and titles I and II of the National Prohibition Act[1] were subsequently specifically repealed by the act of August 27, 1935.[2] Federal prohibition laws effective in various Districts and Territories were repealed as follows: District of Columbia—April 5, 1933, and January 24, 1934;[3] Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands—March 2, 1934;[4] Hawaii—March 26, 1934;[5] and Panama Canal Zone—June 19, 1934.[6]
Taking judicial notice of the fact that ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment was consummated on December 5, 1933, the Supreme Court held that the National Prohibition Act, insofar as it rested upon a grant of authority to Congress by Amendment XVIII thereupon became inoperative; with the result that prosecutions for violations of the National Prohibition Act, including proceedings on appeal, pending on, or begun after, the date of repeal, had to be dismissed for want of jurisdiction. Only final judgments of conviction rendered while the National Prohibition Act was in force remained unaffected.[7] Likewise a heavy "special excise tax," insofar as it could be construed as part of the machinery for enforcing the Eighteenth Amendment, was deemed to have become inapplicable automatically upon the latter's repeal.[8] However, liability on a bond conditioned upon the return on the day of trial of a vessel seized for illegal transportation of liquor was held not to have been extinguished by repeal when the facts disclosed that the trial took place in 1931 and had resulted in conviction of the crew. The liability became complete upon occurrence of the breach of the express contractual condition and a civil action for recovery was viewed as unaffected by the loss of penal sanctions.[9]
Notes