Prohibition

Examples of Prohibition in the following topics:

• The Prohibition Movement

  • Prohibition was a major reform movement from the 1840s into the 1920s.
  • Its goal was to prohibit the manufacture or sale of alcohol.
  • Prohibition was mandated under the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S.
  • Legal and illegal home brewing was popular during Prohibition.
  • Prohibition marked one of the last stages of the Progressive Era.

• Prohibition

  • Prohibition was a national ban on the sale, manufacture and transportation of alcohol that lasted from 1920–1933.
  • A total of 1,520 Prohibition agents from three separate federal agencies – the Coast Guard Office of Law Enforcement, the Treasury Department/Internal Revenue Service Bureau of Prohibition, and the Department of Justice Bureau of Prohibition – were tasked with enforcing the new law.
  • As many as 10,000 people died from drinking denatured alcohol before Prohibition ended.
  • Prohibition had a large effect on music in the United States, specifically Jazz.
  • As Prohibition ended, some of its supporters, including industrialist and philanthropist John D.

• Slavery and Liberty

  • Under the system of slavery in the United States, freedom for slaves was only possible by running away (which was difficult and illegal to do) or by manumission by the slave owners, which was frequently regulated or prohibited by law.
  • By prohibiting changes to regulation of the slave trade for two decades, Article V effectively protected the trade until 1808.
  • As further protection for slavery, Section 2 of Article IV prohibited citizens from providing assistance to escaping slaves and required the return of chattel property to owners.
  • Through the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, slavery was prohibited in the territories northwest of the Ohio River.
  • As the states were organized, they voted to prohibit slavery in their constitutions when they achieved statehood.

• The Dred Scott Decision

  • The Dred Scott decision was particularly significant because the Court concluded that Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in federal territories (nullifying the Missouri Compromise) and that, because slaves were not citizens, they could not sue in court.
  • The decision was fiercely debated across the country and contributed to Abraham Lincoln's success in the presidential election in 1860 as opposition to the Dred Scott decision and the prohibition of further expansion of slavery became integral to the Republican Party platform.
  • In 1836, Scott was again moved to the Wisconsin territory, an area where slavery was "forever prohibited" under the Missouri Compromise.
  • Most significantly, did Congress have the constitutional authority to prohibit slavery in any state or territory?
  • The Court ruled that Scott was not a citizen of the United States, that residence in a free territory did not make Scott free, and that Congress had no constitutional authority to prohibit slavery in any territory.

• Slave Codes

  • For example, slaves were prohibited from reading and writing, and owners were mandated to regularly search slave residences for suspicious activity.
  • Some codes prohibited slaves from possessing weapons, leaving their owner's plantations without permission, and lifting a hand against a white person, even in self-defense.
  • It was common for slaves to be prohibited from carrying firearms or learning to read, but there were often important variations in slave codes across states.
  • In Ohio, an emancipated slave was prohibited from returning to the state in which he or she had been enslaved.
  • The 1682 Virginia code prohibited slaves from possessing weapons, leaving their owner's plantations without permission, and lifting a hand against a white person, even in self-defense.

• Partisan Cooperation and Conflict

  • This Act prohibits unfair practices by labor unions.
  • For example, it prohibits what are called closed-shop agreements, which require employers to hire only union members.
  • However, Taft-Hartley also allows states to pass what are called right-to-work laws which prohibit union shops; about half of all states have passed such laws.
  • Taft-Hartley also prohibits what is called featherbedding, union practices requiring an employer to pay for unnecessary work or unnecessary workers.

• Elements of Reform

  • Prohibition was the outlawing of the manufacture, sale and transport of alcohol.
  • Drinking itself was never prohibited.
  • Evangelicals precipitated the second wave of prohibition legislation during the 1880s, which had as its aim local and state prohibition.
  • The third wave of prohibition legislation, of which national prohibition was the grand climax, began in 1907, when Georgia passed a state-wide prohibition law.
  • In 1913, the Anti-Saloon League first publicly appealed for a prohibition amendment.

• Settlers and the West

  • The Northwest Ordinance foreshadowed the rights of individuals in the Bill of Rights and prohibited slavery north of the Ohio River.
  • The language of the ordinance prohibited slavery, but it did not emancipate the slaves already held by settlers in the territory.

• Treatment of Slaves in the United States

  • After well-known rebellions, such as that by Nat Turner in 1831, some states even prohibited slaves from holding religious gatherings due to the fear that such meetings would facilitate communication and possibly lead to insurrection or escape.
  • At the same time, Southern societies strongly prohibited sexual relations between white women and black men in the name of racial purity.
  • Following the prohibition placed on the trans-Atlantic slave trade in the early nineteenth century, some slave owners attempted to improve the living conditions of their existing slaves in order to deter them from running away.
  • Education of slaves was generally discouraged (and sometimes prohibited) because it was feared that knowledge—particularly the ability to read and write—would cause slaves to become rebellious.

• Conclusion: Cultural Change in the Interwar Period

  • The Interwar Period of the 1920s and 1930s saw a number of significant changes in American culture, largely fueled by Prohibition and the Great Depression.
  • Arguably the two most significant events in the Interwar years, which are also classified as periods in themselves, were Prohibition and the Great Depression.
  • A total of 1,520 Prohibition agents from three separate federal agencies were tasked with enforcing the new law, but they lacked centralized authority.
  • Prohibition had a large effect on music in the United States, specifically Jazz.
  • To understand how American culture changed in the interwar years due to a number of factors, most notably Prohibition and the Great Depression.