2081

1 Ch. 85, 41 Stat. 305. 

2 Ch. 740, 49 Stat. 872. 

PROHIBITION OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS 

EIGHTEENTH AMENDMENT 

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. 

PROHIBITION

Validity of Adoption 

Cases relating to this question are presented and discussed 

under Article V. 

Enforcement

Cases produced by enforcement and arising under the Fourth 

and Fifth Amendments are considered in the discussion appearing 

under the those Amendments. 

Repeal

The Eighteenth Amendment was repealed by the Twenty-first 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were subsequently specifically repealed by the act of August 27, 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Territories were repealed as follows: District of Columbia—April 5, 

2082 AMDT. 18—PROHIBITION OF INTOXICATING 

LIQUORS

3 Ch. 19, 48 Stat. 25; ch. 4, 48 Stat. 319. 

4 Ch. 37, 48 Stat. 361. 

5 Ch. 88, 48 Stat. 467. 

6 Ch. 657, 48 Stat. 1116. 

7 United States v. Chambers, 291 U.S. 217, 222-26 (1934). See also Ellerbee v. 

Aderhold, 5 F. Supp. 1022 (N.D. Ga. 1934); United States ex rel. Randall v. United 

States Marshal, 143 F.2d 830 (2d Cir. 1944). The Twenty-first Amendment 

containing ‘‘no saving clause as to prosecutions for offenses therefore committed,’’ 

these holdings were rendered unavoidable by virtue of the well-established principle 

that after ‘‘the expiration or repeal of a law, no penalty can be enforced, nor punishment inflicted, for violations of the law committed while it was in force. . . .’’ The 

General Pinkney, 9 U.S. (5 Cr.) 281, 283 (1809), quoted in United States v. Chambers, 291 U.S. at 223. 8 United States v. Constantine, 296 U.S. 287 (1935). The Court also took the position that even if the statute embodying this ‘‘tax’’ had not been ‘‘adopted to penalize violations of the Amendment,’’ but merely to obtain a penalty for violations of 

State liquor laws, ‘‘it ceased to be enforceable at the date of repeal,’’ for with the 

lapse of the unusual enforcement powers contained in the Eighteenth Amendment, 

Congress could not, without infringing upon powers reserved to the States by the 

Tenth Amendment, ‘‘impose cumulative penalties above and beyond those specified 

by State law for infractions of . . . [a] State’s criminal code by its own citizens.’’ Justice Cardozo, with whom Justices Brandeis and Stone were associated, dissented on 

the ground that, on its face, the statute levying this ‘‘tax’’ was ‘‘an appropriate instrument of . . . fiscal policy. . . . Classification by Congress according to the nature 

of the calling affected by a tax . . . does not cease to be permissible because the 

line of division between callings to be favored and those to be reproved corresponds 

with a division between innocence and criminality under the statutes of a state.’’ 

Id. at 294, 296, 297-98. In earlier cases it was nevertheless recognized that Congress 

also may tax what it forbids and that the basic tax on distilled spirits remained 

valid and enforceable during as well as after the life of the Amendment. See United

States v. Yuginovich, 256 U.S. 450, 462 (1921); United States v. Stafoff, 260 U.S. 

477 (1923); United States v. Rizzo, 297 U.S. 530 (1936). 

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 the Eighteenth 

Amendment, thereupon become 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 Amendment’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 

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LIQUORS

9 United States v. Mack, 295 U.S. 480 (1935). 

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