Home Amendments An Overview of the 21st Amendment

An Overview of the 21st Amendment

An Overview of the 21st Amendment

What is the 21st Amendment?

“Section 1. The eighteenth article of amendment to theConstitution of the United States is hereby repealed.
Section 2. The transportation or importation into every State, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.
Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission here of to the States by the Congress.”
The 21st Amendment Defined

Date Proposed

The 21st Amendment was proposed on February 20th, 1933
Date Passed

The 21st Amendment was passed on December 5th, 1933

President of the United States

Franklin D. Roosevelt was the President of the United States during the ratification of the 21st Amendment
Stipulations of the 21st Amendment

The 21st Amendment was a direct response to the preexisting 18th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, which mandated the sale, possession, consumption, and transport of alcoholic beverages as illegal
In addition to this amendment overturning statutes deeming alcoholic beverages to be illegal, the 21st Amendment allowed individual states to regulate all applicable legislature with regard to the commercial availability of alcoholic beverages
The 21st Amendment instituted the legal instrument currently known as liquor licenses

21st Amendment Facts

As of 2011, the 21st Amendment is the only Constitutional Amendment facilitated to directly repeal a preexisting amendment – in this case, that amendment is the 18th Amendment
The 18th Amendment – which included the prohibition of alcoholic beverages – was a direct response to ethics committees existing within the United States that credited alcohol with lascivious and criminal behavior
States Ratifying the 21st Amendment

1. Alabama
2. Arizona
3. Arkansas
4. California
5. Colorado
6. Connecticut
7. Delaware
8. Florida
9. Idaho
10. Illinois
11. Indiana
12. Iowa
13. Kentucky
14. Maine
15. Maryland
16. Massachusetts
17. Michigan
18. Minnesota
19. Missouri
20. Montana
21. Nevada
22. New Hampshire
23. New Jersey
24. New Mexico
25. New York
26. North Carolina
27. Ohio
28. Oregon
29. Pennsylvania
30. Rhode Island
31. South Carolina
32. Tennessee
33. Texas
34. Utah
35. Vermont
36. Virginia
37. Washington
38. West Virginia
39. Wisconsin
40. Wyoming

States Not Participatory in the Ratification of the 21st Amendment
1. Georgia
2. Kansas
3. Louisiana
4. Mississippi
5. Nebraska
6. North Dakota
7. Oklahoma
8. South Dakota

Court Cases Associated with the 21st Amendment
Craig v. Boren (1976) – this court case addressed proposed legislation differentiating the legal age of alcohol consumption imposed with regard to males and females within the state of Oklahoma; the motion was overturned as a result of a presumed violation of the 14th Amendment