Or any booze you’d accumulated up to then, right down the drain? Or could you just drink it at your own pace and not buy any more? Did people stock up on liquor in the leadup to Prohibition’s effective date, or did they just presume they’d still be able to get it illicitly?
No. The 18th Amendment banned the manufacture, sale and importation of alcoholic beverages. I imagine that people stocked up like crazy just before it took effect.
FWIW there’s a scene in The Roaring Twenties that depicts people going crazy stocking up on booze prior to the law taking effect.
So it was not illegal to purchase alcohol? I image I have from movies is the patrons of a speakeasy being marched into a paddy wagon during a raid. Maybe it was actually only the owners and employees.
The language in the Amendment doesn’t say anything about purchasing booze being illegal so maybe not. Maybe some of the individual States had more restrictive laws that made buying or being under the influence of alcohol illegal.
Surely anybody who bought alcohol was an accessory to the crime of selling it?
In Boston, anyway-as my late grandfather was fond of saying (he was a Boston cop from 1919-1924). According to him, there were at least 700 speakeasies in Boston-places ranging from basement rooms to back rooms in fine restaurants, where you could get a drink.
You could also buy booze off the back of a truck, and many ethnic groups (Italians, Grees, etc.) made their own wines and beers (grape sales durng prohibition were huge). Pharmacies were allowed to sell medicinal brandy-and many doctors would write a prescription for you, for a few bucks.
I belive that prohibition was responsible for New Engladers developing a taste for Canadian whiskey, as Canada was just a few hours north, and the border was pretty much open.
The Volstead Act defined the offenses and penalties of Prohibition. No, it did not criminalize the possession of alcohol purchased before that date, and yes, you bet, people stocked up when and where they could. It wasn’t always easy, however; by 1919-20, many states had already enacted their own Prohibition, and there were still federal restrictions that had been put in place during World War I. (Alcohol wasted grain that could feed troops, don’t you know.)
As for purchasing liquor after the act went into effect–to be hyper-literal, the law didn’t criminalize purchase. However, it criminalized transport, so good luck getting the hootch (legally) from the manufacturer to your house. And also,
The “statement” would be something to the effect that the liquor was for medicinal or sacramental purposes, failing which it could not be legally manufactured, transported, or sold. So it was pretty difficult to buy liquor without committing a crime.
Thanks, everyone!
Notice that the language of the amendment made no mention of medicinal exceptions. Also I know that sacramental wine was legal. Interesting since it has more or less been decided that medicinal use of marijuana is now, if not legal, at least not to be prosecuted.
I still don’t understand why it took a consitutional amendment to ban alcohol, but only federal statues to ban other drugs. I have raised this before without getting any convincing answers.
Patrons of speakeasies might be busted in raids, but I don’t think they were usually charged with violating the Volstead Act themselves. Instead it might be just public drunkenness or disorderly behavior, or whatever they charge people with for being at illicit clubs or after hours bars today. For instance, there’s a P.G. Wodehouse story where there’s an after hours club raid, and they certainly never had Prohibition there, but it plays out much the same as it would have in a Prohibition-era raid in the States. In any event, the speakeasy operators would be charged with violating the Prohibition act, or whatever state laws there were in addition thereto. Depending on the circumstances and local politics, then they might simply pay their–ahem–fine, and go back to business as usual; or the consequences might be more serious.
Some states had far stricter laws that included simple possession. In Michigan, where possession was a felony, they had an early version of a Three Strikes law, that specified a life sentence for any third felony conviction. Therefore there were a few cases at the time of people being convicted of alcohol possession and sent to prison for life. Their sentences were eventually commuted after Repeal.
I read the Volstead law once; IIRC there was a provision that, a year or so following the effective date of the Act, any alcohol possessed would be presumed to have been obtained illegally. While it still didn’t outlaw possession outright, it shifted the burden of proof to the possessor.
For the same reason the nutballs pushed for a Constitutional Amendment on flag burning, and are trying for one on abortion, etc. When it becomes a “moral issue,” it must be enshrined in the Holy Writ! :rolleyes:
That is correct. The remainder of Section 33 which I quoted above was:
Because the interstate commerce clause was not considered to empower Congress to enact such statutes, before it was expansively interpreted during the New Deal. You can be convinced or not, but that was the reason.
[Moderator Note]
Let’s avoid political and religious jabs in GQ.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
But it would actually take a constitutional amendment to ban flag burning, since flag burning is protected by the first amendment (at least according to the courts). The same applies to banning abortion. The question was why an amendment was apparently necessary for banning alcohol, and yet the federal government bans, e.g., cocaine without any corresponding amendment.
How old do you think we are?
That’s really an interesting question. Today, there is no question that the federal government could ban controlled substances, but that theory wasn’t necessarily true back then.
For example, opium wasn’t technically illegal. But, in order to buy or sell opium, you had to buy a tax stamp for it, and the government didn’t sell tax stamps for opium. No one was sure that the federal government had the right to regulate such things within a state. That’s why they went with the tax stamp business with opium.
States could easily ban booze and many did, but that didn’t prevent people from going to the next state and stocking up. I would assume that the federal government, under the commerce clause could ban the interstate trade of alcohol, and maybe require tax stamps and not sell tax stamps like they did for opium and heroin.
I think it really came down to that the forces for prohibition could get 3/4ths of the states to pass the amendment, and thus make it almost impossible to make booze legal ever again. Part of the prohibition movement was part of the women’s movement. Part of it was anti-immigration movement (Rum, Romanism, and Revolution!), part of it was a nativist movement, and part of it was popularism.
Irony is that the nation was so sick of prohibition that when state conventions were called to ratify the 21st amendment, even Utah voted for repealing prohibition.
I would classify the push for anti-abortion and anti-flag burning amendments as a bit different. Congress could have regulated alcohol without the 18th amendment. However, the Supreme Court has ruled that you have a constitutional right to abortion and burning the flag and has struck down laws that would prohibit these activities. Thus, the only way to ban these activities would be a constitutional amendment.
I’m not sure that this is the actual answer, but the commerce clause of the constitution was interpreted much more strictly in the 20’s than it would come to be a decade or so later. So without a constitutional amendment, it would have been very hard effect a complete ban without running afoul of the commerce clause. If I grew my own wheat, distilled my own booze, and sold it entirely locally, then according to the 20’s interpretation of the commerce clause, the federal government would be unable to regulate my activity. It took FDR threatening to add more members to the Supreme Court to get it change its mind about the reach of the commerce clause.
In contrast to alcohol, by the time most of the federal drug legislation came about (30’s and later, I believe) the commerce clause had grown so there was no longer a need for an amendment.
Nitpick: It was “Rum, Romanism and rebellion!” From Wiki re: the election of 1884:
In the final week of the campaign, [Republican James G.] Blaine’s campaign suffered a catastrophe. At a Republican meeting attended by Blaine, a group of New York preachers castigated the Mugwumps. Their spokesman, the Rev. Dr. Samuel Burchard, made this fatal statement: “We are Republicans, and don’t propose to leave our party and identify ourselves with the party whose antecedents have been rum, Romanism, and rebellion.” Blaine did not notice Burchard’s anti-Catholic slur, nor did the assembled newspaper reporters, but a Democratic operative did, and [Grover] Cleveland’s campaign managers made sure that it was widely publicized. The statement energized the Catholic vote in New York City heavily against Blaine, costing him New York State and the election by the narrowest of margins.
[QUOTE=qazwart;11707141
States could easily ban booze and many did, but that didn’t prevent people from going to the next state and stocking up. I would assume that the federal government, under the commerce clause could ban the interstate trade of alcohol, and maybe require tax stamps and not sell tax stamps like they did for opium and heroin.QUOTE]
It is still illegal to bring ANY alcohol into the state of Utah that was not originally purchaced here in Utah.
At the SLC International Airport, on flights coming into Salt Lake from Mexico or Canada you are not “allowed” (by Utah law) to bring back a bottle from your international vacation destination, even though it is perfectly legal as far as US Customs laws are concerned.
The Utah State officials (either the Tax Comission or UDABC) recently asked the US Customs Agents (the only ones who actually go thru your stuff upon your arrival back in Salt Lake) working the SLC airport to inform them of wayward Utahns bold enough to try bringing back a bottle of mezcal from Mazatlan or Seagrams from Saskatoon, but the Feds told the Utah officials that it was not their place to enforce Utah’s wierdo liquor laws…