Eighteenth Amendment
Prohibition Era · The only amendment ever fully repealed by another
Ratified in 1919, the Eighteenth Amendment banned the manufacture, sale, and transport of alcoholic beverages nationwide. It lasted just under fourteen years before being repealed — a real, self-contained case study in the amendment process working exactly as designed, in both directions.
The manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors…for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.
Eighteenth Amendment, ratified 1919
The text
Section 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.
Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Section 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.
Spelling and punctuation as transcribed by the National Archives.
What It Actually Banned, and Didn’t
Banned
Manufacturing, selling, and transporting alcoholic beverages for consumption, nationwide.
Not directly banned
The amendment’s text itself didn’t criminalize personal possession or consumption — that came from the enforcing legislation, the Volstead Act, not the amendment’s own words.
Prohibition’s failure is exactly why it’s the only amendment ever repealed
A common misconception is that Prohibition simply proved unpopular and was voted out like an ordinary law. Its consequences were more concrete: it fueled organized crime, overwhelmed law enforcement and courts, and cost significant tax revenue during the early Depression — specific, documented harms that built a real, broad coalition for repeal within just fourteen years, a strikingly short lifespan for a constitutional amendment.