Amendment 18 — Alcoholic Beverages In Colonial America

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Eighteenth Amendment

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:

Early colonial Americans drank, imported, and manufactured large quantities of alcoholic beverages.[1](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-18/alcoholic-beverages-in-colonial-america#fn1amd18 " Eric Burns, The Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol 8 (2004); Mark Edward Lender & James Kirby Martin, Drinking in America: A History 9 (1982) ( “Simply stated, most settlers drank often and abundantly.” ). Drinking was an important part of Americans’ social, occupational, and political life. See Ed Crews, Rattle-Skull, Stonewall, Bogus, Blackstrap, Bombo, Mimbo, Whistle Belly, Syllabub, Sling, Toddy, and Flip: Drinking in Colonial America, Colonial Williamsburg (Spring 2007), https://research.colonialwilliamsburg.org/Foundation/journal/Holiday07/drink.cfm ( “Alcohol lubricated such social events as christenings, weddings, funerals, trials, and election-day gatherings, where aspiring candidates tempted voters with free drinks. Craftsmen drank at work, as did hired hands in the fields, shoppers in stores, sailors at sea, and soldiers in camp.” ). ") Shortly after arriving in the New World, the settlers of Great Britain’s American colonies brewed beer and cider, believing these beverages to be safer to drink than water.[2](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-18/alcoholic-beverages-in-colonial-america#fn2amd18 " Burns, supra note1, at 33–34; Lender & Martin, supra 1, at 2 (discussing how the pilgrims and other settlers “brought generous supplies of liquor with them” when they settled America). ") By the mid-eighteenth century, commercial distilleries in New England were producing large quantities of rum.[3](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-18/alcoholic-beverages-in-colonial-america#fn3amd18 " Burns, supra 1, at 39–40; Lender & Martin, supra 1, at 30–31. Distillation is “the process of boiling a liquid to separate the components . . . . Distillation of fermented solutions such as beer, wine or mead results in a product with a higher alcohol content. Distilled alcohol can be stored longer than beers and wines, so producing distilled beverages became a good way for farmers to use excess grain to produce a marketable product.” Indomitable Spirits: Prohibition in the United States: Distilleries, Digital Pub. Libr. of Am., https://dp.la/exhibitions/spirits/early-alcohol-consumption/distilleries (last visited June 13, 2023). ") At taverns and other establishments that served alcoholic drinks, Americans gathered to socialize, debate politics, and organize protests against British rule.[4](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-18/alcoholic-beverages-in-colonial-america#fn4amd18 " Taverns served as the location for the planning of key events leading up to the Revolutionary War. See Burns, supra 1, at 7–8 (noting that the New York merchants organized Stamp Act boycotts at Burns’s Tavern on Broadway and that Bostonians “organize[d] their tea party at the Green Dragon Tavern” ); Lender & Martin, supra 1, at 13 (stating that taverns “offered not only food and drink but also lodgings and a forum for public gatherings” ). ") After the Revolutionary War, for patriotic and practical reasons, many eighteenth-century Americans preferred to drink whiskey distilled from corn and grain, particularly on the Frontier.[5](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-18/alcoholic-beverages-in-colonial-america#fn5amd18 " See Rum, Mt. Vernon, https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/rum/ (last visited June 13, 2023). After the Revolutionary War, government policies restricted imports of rum’s key ingredient, molasses. Meanwhile, Americans increasingly settled the lands west of the Appalachian Mountains where corn and grain were abundant. See Lender & Martin, supra 1, at 30–33, 54; Daniel Okrent, Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition 54 (2010) (describing how a farmer could choose to “transport a wagonload of grain across the Alleghenies, or he could reduce the wagonload to a few convenient, compact, rot-resistant, and highly profitable jugs of whiskey.” ). ")

Like other early Americans, several Founders drank, bought, sold, or produced alcoholic beverages. For example, Thomas Jefferson, an avid wine connoisseur, once wrote that the “light and high flavored wines” were a “necessary of life” for him.[6](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-18/alcoholic-beverages-in-colonial-america#fn6amd18 " Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Appleton (Jan. 14, 1816), Nat’l Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-09-02-0222) (last visited June 13, 2023), Although Jefferson experimented with growing grapes at his Monticello plantation, it does not appear that he ever produced a Monticello wine. Peter J. Hatch, The Vineyards, Monticello, https://www.monticello.org/house-gardens/farms-gardens/fruit-gardens/the-vineyards/ (last visited June 13, 2023). ") At Jefferson’s Monticello plantation, Peter Hemings, an enslaved person who worked as a cook and tailor, brewed an ale for family and guests.[7](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-18/alcoholic-beverages-in-colonial-america#fn7amd18 " Mary V. Thompson, Beer, Monticello, https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jefferson-encyclopedia/beer/ (last visited June 13, 2023). Peter Hemings was “the ninth child of Elizabeth Hemings, matriarch of the Hemings family at Monticello, and her fifth child by her enslaver at the time, John Wayles—Thomas Jefferson’s father in-law.” Peter Hemings, Monticello, https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jefferson-encyclopedia/peter-hemings/ (last visited June 13, 2023). ") During the Revolutionary War, George Washington, who served as Commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, wrote that “there should always be a sufficient quantity of spirits, with the army to furnish moderate supplies to the troops.” [8](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-18/alcoholic-beverages-in-colonial-america#fn8amd18 " Letter from George Washington to William Buchanan (Aug. 20, 1777), Nat’l Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-11-02-0011 (last visited June 13, 2023). ") After fulfilling his duties as the nation’s first President and retiring to his Mount Vernon estate, Washington operated one of the largest and most profitable distilleries in the nation, which once produced 11,000 gallons of whiskey in a single year.[9](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-18/alcoholic-beverages-in-colonial-america#fn9amd18 " Ten Facts About the Distillery, Monticello, https://www.mountvernon.org/the-estate-gardens/distillery/ten-facts-about-the-distillery/ (last visited June 13, 2023) ( “In 1799, Washington’s Distillery produced almost 11,000 gallons of whiskey, valued at $7,500 (approximately $120,000 today.” ). Washington also purchased and brewed beer for consumption on his Mount Vernon estate. Thompson, supra 7. Only a few days before the Constitution’s signing, the Light Horse of Philadelphia, “a volunteer cavalry corps that crossed the Delaware River with Washington” during the Revolutionary War, held a farewell party for him at The City Tavern in Philadelphia. According to the evening’s bar tab, the 55 attendees ordered “‘54 bottles of Madeira, 60 bottles of Claret, 8 bottles of whiskey, 8 bottles of cider, 12 bottles of beer and 7 large bowls of punch.’” Ella Lee, Fact Check: George Washington’s Hefty Bar Tab, Days Before Constitution’s Signing, Is Real, USA Today (Jan. 20, 2022), https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2022/01/20/fact-check-george-washingtons-expensive-bar-tab-real/5947984001/ (quoting Planet Beer Party Animals!, Facebook (Jan. 19, 2022), https://www.facebook.com/PlanetBeer1/posts/3107916102797492. See also Bill for an Evening of Entertainment for George Washington - 14 September 1787, Quill Project, https://www.quillproject.net/resources/resource_item/38/3109 (last visited June 13, 2023). ")

Although moderate alcohol consumption played a prominent role in many Americans’ lives during the Founding Era,[10](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-18/alcoholic-beverages-in-colonial-america#fn10amd18 " Lender & Martin, supra 1, at 52–53. Colonial- and Founding-era laws permitted authorities to punish drunkenness; however, “community values” often sufficed to prevent alcohol abuse. Id. at 16–18. “[V]arious local laws such as those regulating the establishment of closing times, limitation on the volume of liquor served, and fines for the excessive drinker and/or the server were not uncommon.” Indomitable Spirits, supra 3; Clark Byse, Alcoholic Beverage Control Before Repeal, 7 Law & Contemp. Probs. 544, 544–47, 552 (1940) (surveying the history of early American legislation regulating the retail sale of alcoholic beverages, including licensing, regulatory, and taxation provisions that applied to taverns). ") some of the nation’s earliest leaders opposed the excessive consumption of distilled alcoholic beverages (e.g., whiskey or rum).[11](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-18/alcoholic-beverages-in-colonial-america#fn11amd18 " The Second Continental Congress passed a resolution in February 1777 urging the state legislatures “immediately to pass laws the most effectual for putting an immediate stop to the pernicious practice of distilling grain, by which the most extensive evils are likely to be derived, if not quickly prevented.” 7 Journals of the Continental Congress 1774–1789, at 165 (Worthington Chauncey Ford, ed., 1907) (Feb. 27, 1777). However, the Congress’s journal does not explain the resolution’s motivation. ") For example, George Washington, in a 1788 letter to a French diplomat, wrote that an increase in Americans’ consumption of French wines and brandies would “be more innocent to the health and morals of the people, than the thousands of Hogsheads of poisonous Rum which are annually consumed in the United States.” [12](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-18/alcoholic-beverages-in-colonial-america#fn12amd18 " Letter from George Washington to Eléonor-François-Elie, Comte de Moustier (Dec. 15, 1788), Nat’l Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-01-02-0136 (last visited June 13, 2023). Thomas Jefferson once wrote to an acquaintance that he wished “to see [beer] become common instead of the whiskey which kills one third of our citizens and ruins their families.” Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Charles Yancey (Jan. 6, 1816), Nat’l Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-09-02-0209 (last visited June 13, 2023). ") Alexander Hamilton, while serving as the nation’s first Treasury Secretary, wrote in a 1790 report to Congress that the “consumption of ardent spirits . . . no doubt very much on account of their cheapness, is carried to an extreme, which is truly to be regretted, as well in regard to the health and the morals, as to the economy of the community.” [13](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-18/alcoholic-beverages-in-colonial-america#fn13amd18 " Report Relative to a Provision for the Support of Public Credit, [9 January 1790], Nat’l Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-06-02-0076-0002-0001#ARHN-01-06-02-0076-0002-fn-0127 (last visited June 13, 2023). ") Acting on Hamilton’s recommendation, Congress enacted a tax on whiskey distillation, which led farmers in western Pennsylvania to rebel unsuccessfully against the federal government.[14](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-18/alcoholic-beverages-in-colonial-america#fn14amd18 " Burns, supra 1, at 43–45. President Washington sent 15,000 militiamen to Pennsylvania, who successfully put down the Whiskey Rebellion without significant opposition. Id. ")

Another Founder, the physician Benjamin Rush, warned the American public about alcoholism’s dangers. A politician and social reformer who signed the Declaration of Independence, Rush wrote a pamphlet, first published in 1784, titled An Inquiry Into the Effects of Ardent Spirits Upon the Human Body and Mind.[15](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-18/alcoholic-beverages-in-colonial-america#fn15amd18 "<span class="fn_ref" id="_ALDF_00