TWENTY-FIRST AMENDMENT

The Twenty-First Amendment repealed the eighteenth amendment and rescinded the constitutional mandate for national prohibition of alcoholic beverages. Congress proposed the amendment in February 1933; ratification was complete in December 1933. To the extent that the volstead act depended upon the constitutional authority of the Eighteenth Amendment, that statute became inoperative upon the passage of the Twenty-First Amendment.

The second clause of the Twenty-First Amendment prohibits transportation or importation of intoxicating liquors into states or territories in contravention of local law. The clause apparently gives the states power to regulate interstate commerce in alcoholic beverages, including the authority to discriminate against out-of-state producers and distributors, thus freeing the states, as far as liquor is concerned, from commerce clause restrictions. The Supreme Court has upheld that interpretation in several cases, notably State Board v. Young's Market (1936). The Court suggested an even broader scope for state regulatory power under the amendment in California v. LaRue (1972), when it upheld a regulation banning sexually explicit entertainment in licensed taverns, and in Elks' Lodge v. Ingraham (1973), when it upheld a statute denying liquor licenses to private clubs that practiced racial discrimination.

The Twenty-First Amendment is the only constitutional amendment to have been ratified by state conventions rather than by the state legislatures. Congress chose this variant of the amending process because proponents of repeal feared that antiliquor sentiment was dominant in many state legislatures, because of the overrepresentation of rural areas.

Dennis J. Mahoney
(1986)