21st Amendment

"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 The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.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. Effect of Repeal."

The repeal of prohibition has just been a case of time. It has not brought any good to the citizens and to take it back after just a few years has shown, that people understood they have made a mistake to make alcohol illegal.
  

"The 21st Amendment Repeals the 18th

Happy Days are Here Again, Rare Amendment Ends Prohibition

Nov 13, 2009 David J. Shestokas

The Eighteenth Amendment had been the product of 178 years of efforts to ban alcohol in the United States that started with a ban in Georgia in 1742. The ban of the Eighteenth Amendment went into effect Jan, 16, 1920. It lasted a mere thirteen years.

21st Amendment Passed in 288 Days, Ending Prohibition

The stories of Prohibition, including the likes of Al Capone and the Untouchables are well known. In light of the atmosphere created by Prohibition, a political movement to elect “wet” legislators grew and on Feb. 20, 1933 Congress sent the following proposal to the States:
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 The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.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.
With the ratifications of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Utah on Dec. 5, 1933, the 21st Amendment became effective and Prohibition was ended.

Four Rare Elements of the 21st Amendment

The 21st Amendment, although only in three sections, contained four elements unusual to the Constitution. Three are unique and the fourth is rare:

1. first and only amendment to repeal another amendment
2. only Amendment Ratified by State Conventions
3. only Amendment to Grant Specific Authority to the States.
4. one of only two Amendments to prohibit private conduct.

21st Amendment Repeals the 18th

By 1933, the Constitution had been amended 20 times. Never before had any amendment been repealed. Some amendments had modified prior amendments or extended their reach. The Fourteenth Amendment for example, extended elements of the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth to the States. In repealing the Eighteenth Amendment, the Twenty-First became the only Amendment to repeal another.

21st Only Amendment Ratified by State Conventions

The Constitution provides for two methods for ratifying amendments submitted to the States by Congress. One is by the votes of the state legislatures. For all of the other 26 amendments this has been the method of ratification. The other method is by conventions held in each state with convention members chosen for the single purpose of considering the proposed amendment.
The 21st Amendment’s Section 3 required that state conventions consider the proposed amendment. There was congressional concern that the normally elected legislators were either beholden to the temperance lobby or sympathetic to it. Electing special conventions was the solution to this potential political problem.

21st Only Amendment to Grant Specific Authority to the States

While the Tenth Amendment provides for the undefined reservation of authority to the States, there is no amendment but the 21st that specifically grants the States a power. Section 2 gives the States broad authority to regulate the delivery or use of intoxicating liquors. In many instances this has been found to override the authority granted to Congress by the Commerce Clause.
The extent of that authority regarding many aspects of the Constitution remains a matter of contention to the present day as demonstrated by the mail order wine case of Granholm v. Heald, 544 U.S. 460 (2005).

21st One of Only Two to Regulate Private Conduct

The Thirteenth Amendment prohibits an individual from enslaving another. The Twenty-First prohibits someone from bringing alcohol into a State while disobeying its liquor laws. These are the only two constitutional provisions to regulate private conduct.
As constitutional scholar Lawrence Tribe has put it: "there are two ways, and only two ways, in which an ordinary private citizen ... can violate the United States Constitution. One is to enslave someone, a suitably hellish act. The other is to bring a bottle of beer, wine, or bourbon into a State in violation of its beverage control laws—an act that might have been thought juvenile, and perhaps even lawless, but unconstitutional?""

Source: http://www.suite101.com/content/the-21st-amendment-repeals-the-18th-a169425

This amendment repealed another one to straigthen out a mistake that has been made. But it is also the only one up to now that has been ratified in State Conventions. This shows how close to the heart this matter has been to the American people. They have seen the bad and the ugly that has come out of the 18th amendment and wanted apparently desperatly a change.

This obviously fake video of the 30s still gives an insight into opinions of the people back then and how they felt about prohibition with a lot of stereotypes incorporated. Still, most of them wanted it to be gone anyway.