Amendment 18 — Ratification Deadline

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Eighteenth Amendment, 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.

The Eighteenth Amendment was the first to specify a deadline for its ratification.[1](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-18/ratification-deadline#fn1amd18 " See Dillon v. Gloss, 256 U.S. 368, 375–76 (1921) (upholding Congress’s specification of a seven-year deadline for the Eighteenth Amendment’s ratification). ") Section 3 of the Amendment required state legislatures to ratify the Amendment within seven years of its submission to the states for it to become part of the Constitution.[2](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-18/ratification-deadline#fn2amd18 " U.S. Const. amend. XVIII, § 3. ") The Eighteenth Amendment was submitted to the states on December 18, 1917.[3](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-18/ratification-deadline#fn3amd18 " See . ") The states ratified the Amendment on January 16, 1919, and it became effective one year later on January 17, 1920.[4](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-18/ratification-deadline#fn4amd18 " See id. ") The Eighteenth Amendment was repealed when the states ratified the Twenty-First Amendment on December 5, 1933.[5](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-18/ratification-deadline#fn5amd18 " U.S. Const. amend. XXI, § 1; . ")

Footnotes

1

See Dillon v. Gloss, 256 U.S. 368 , 375–76 (1921) (upholding Congress’s specification of a seven-year deadline for the Eighteenth Amendment’s ratification).

2

U.S. Const. amend. XVIII , § 3.

3

See .

4

See id.

5

U.S. Const. amend. XXI , § 1; .