Prohibition, the Constitution, and States' Rights

Prohibition, the Constitution, and States' Rights
Author: Sean Beienburg
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 333
Release: 2019-06-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 022663213X

Colorado’s legalization of marijuana spurred intense debate about the extent to which the Constitution preempts state-enacted laws and statutes. Colorado’s legal cannabis program generated a strange scenario in which many politicians, including many who freely invoke the Tenth Amendment, seemed to be attacking the progressive state for asserting states’ rights. Unusual as this may seem, this has happened before—in the early part of the twentieth century, as America concluded a decades-long struggle over the suppression of alcohol during Prohibition. Sean Beienburg recovers a largely forgotten constitutional debate, revealing how Prohibition became a battlefield on which skirmishes of American political development, including the debate over federalism and states’ rights, were fought. Beienburg focuses on the massive extension of federal authority involved in Prohibition and the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment, describing the roles and reactions of not just Congress, the presidents, and the Supreme Court but political actors throughout the states, who jockeyed with one another to claim fidelity to the Tenth Amendment while reviling nationalism and nullification alike. The most comprehensive treatment of the constitutional debate over Prohibition to date, the book concludes with a discussion of the parallels and differences between Prohibition in the 1920s and debates about the legalization of marijuana today.

The Prohibition Amendment

The Prohibition Amendment
Author: United States. Congress. House. Committee on the Judiciary
Publisher:
Total Pages: 2066
Release: 1930
Genre: Prohibition
ISBN:

Amendments XVIII and XXI: Prohibition and Repeal

Amendments XVIII and XXI: Prohibition and Repeal
Author: Sylvia Engdahl
Publisher: Greenhaven Publishing LLC
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2009-03-30
Genre: Young Adult Nonfiction
ISBN: 0737745894

This volume presents the legal concepts of the Eighteenth and Twenty-first Amendments in an engagingly simplified, easily understandable way, while reflecting provisions in both the national and state curriculum standards. Readers will look at these two amendments in historical context, examining how they have been tested in the courts and present current controversies and debates. Lastly, readers will examine each amendment's current relevance.