1967

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.

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

This Amendment was repealed by the Twenty-first Amendment, and titles I and II of the National Prohibition Act 1 were subsequently specifically repealed by the act of August 27, 1935, 2 federal prohibition laws effective in various Districts and Territories

were repealed as follows: District of Columbia—April 5, 1933, and
1968 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 for Eastern Dist. of New York, 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, supra, 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. 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).

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 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
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LIQUORS

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

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