Prohibition and Organized Crime essays

Prohibition and Organized Crime essays In October 1919, congress voted and approved the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment by thirty-six states and turned it into law as the National Prohibition Act of 1920 just one year later. This amendment prohibited the manufacture, sale, transport, import or export of alcoholic beverages. The Eighteenth Amendment is comprised of three main sections: 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 2. The Congress and the several states shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. 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. So how did it happen? How did a liberty loving people decide to give up a private right that had been used by millions all over the country since the first settlers arrived? Why would they solicit the extinction of the fifth largest industry in the nation? Interestingly enough, why would the new Eighteenth Amendment be the first to restrict citizens when the first seventeen limited government? Now there were two exceptions to the great Amendments: you couldnt buy alcohol and you couldnt own slaves. 2. Prohibition changed the way people lived and in the end redefined the role of government and how it began to dictate the lives of its constituents. Big Brother is not a recent phenomenon but one that began almost one hundred years ago during the time of Prohibition. George Washington himself was quoted as saying The benefits arising from moderate ...