The Twenty-first Amendment
Repealing Prohibition
Repealed Prohibition and gave states broad authority over alcohol within their borders.
Ratified 1933 · 3 minute read
Published by Quasi-Legal Institute · Report an error
Section 1. The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed. Section 2. The transportation or importation into any 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 hereof to the States by the Congress.
In plain language
Repeal
This ended nationwide Prohibition. It is the only amendment that repealed an earlier one.
The repeal
Congress proposed the amendment in February 1933, and it was ratified in December of that year when Utah became the thirty-sixth state to approve it. Some states had already ended their own bans, and national Prohibition ended when the amendment took effect.
How much power states have
Section 2 gives states a lot of room, but not unlimited room. In Granholm v. Heald (2005), the Court held that a state cannot allow its own wineries to ship wine to customers while forbidding out-of-state wineries from doing the same. In Tennessee Wine and Spirits Retailers Association v. Thomas (2019), it struck down a requirement that people live in a state for two years before they could get a liquor store license.
In both cases, the Court said the Twenty-first Amendment does not override the Constitution’s ban on laws that discriminate against interstate commerce.
Why the drinking age is 21
The Constitution does not set a drinking age. In 1984, Congress passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which reduced a share of a state’s federal highway funding if it did not make 21 the minimum age. In South Dakota v. Dole (1987), the Court upheld that approach, so every state now sets its minimum drinking age at 21, though some have exceptions, such as for alcohol served by a parent or used in a religious ceremony.