Blogging from A to Z April Challenge - Letter V

We're fast approaching the end of the final full week of the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge.

The Volstead Act is often referred to as the National Prohibition Enforcement Act of 1919. This act provided for the enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment, which stated, "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." This act, which classified as alcoholic all beverages containing more than one-half to one percent alcohol by volume, passed over President Woodrow Wilson's veto.

Viewed by many Americans to be the solution to the nation's poverty, crime, violence, and other problems, the act specified the provisions of the Eighteenth Amendment, delineated fines and prison terms for violators of the law, and empowered the Bureau of Internal Revenue to administer Prohibition.

Shortly after the Eighteenth Amendment went into affect, portable stills went on sale around the country. Smuggling quickly developed. Prohibition also led to the widespread corruption of law enforcement agencies and politicians and fostered the growth of organized crime.

Calls to repeal the Eighteenth Amendment began in 1923. Though President Herbert Hoover and others believed it an "experiment noble in purpose," an investigation ordered by Hoover in 1929 confirmed that the Eighteenth Amendment remained largely unenforceable. Repeal organizations formed and grew in membership as people realized that not only had Prohibition failed to live up to its promises, but had actually created disturbing social issues.

The overwhelming victory of Democrats in 1932, who had come out in favor of repealing Prohibition, encouraged Congress to pass the Twenty-first Amendment on February 20, 1933, repealing the Eighteenth Amendment. It is the only Constitutional Amendment that has been repealed.