The Eighteenth Amendment and National Prohibition, Part 2: The Colonial Era
Legal Sidebari
The Eighteenth Amendment and National
Prohibition, Part 2: The Colonial Era
June 26, 2023
This Legal Sidebar post is the second in a seven-part series that discusses the Eighteenth Amendment to
the Constitution. Prior to its repeal, the Eighteenth Amendment prohibited the manufacture, sale, or
transportation of “intoxicating liquors” for “beverage purposes” within the United States. Section 2 of the
Amendment granted Congress and the state legislatures “concurrent power” to enforce nationwide
Prohibition by enacting “appropriate legislation.” The Eighteenth Amendment was partly a response to the
Supreme Court’s pre-Prohibition Era Commerce Clause jurisprudence, which limited the federal and state
governments’ power over the liquor traffic. As such, the Eighteenth Amendment’s history provides insight
into the judicial evolution of the Commerce Clause, which operates as both a positive grant of legislative
power to Congress and a limit on state authority to regulate commerce. Additional information on this
topic will be published in the Constitution Annotated: Analysis and Interpretation of the U.S.
Constitution.
Alcoholic Beverages in Colonial America
Early colonial Americans drank, imported, and manufactured large quantities of alcoholic beverages.
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. By the mid-18th century, commercial
distilleries in New England were producing large quantities of rum. At taverns and other establishments
that served alcoholic drinks, Americans gathered to socialize, debate politics, and organize protests
against British rule. After the Revolutionary War, for patriotic and practical reasons, many 18th-century
Americans preferred to drink whiskey distilled from corn and grain, particularly on the Frontier.
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. At Jefferson’s Monticello plantation, Peter Hemings, an
enslaved person who worked as a cook and tailor, brewed an ale for family and guests. 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.” After fulfilling his duties as the nation’s first President and retiring to his Mount
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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.
Although moderate alcohol consumption played a prominent role in many Americans’ lives during the
Founding Era, some of the nation’s earliest leaders opposed the excessive consumption of distilled
alcoholic beverages (e.g., whiskey or rum). 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.” 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.” 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.
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. In his pamphlet, Rush identified some of alcoholism’s symptoms and suggested potential remedies.
One of Rush’s remedies, which helped to inspire the early 19th-century temperance movement, was the
cultivation of a “practical belief in the doctrines of the Christian religion.” Rush aimed to reduce the
consumption of distilled alcoholic beverages (e.g., whiskey or rum) but did not oppose moderate
consumption of less potent alcohol beverages (e.g., beer or wine). Rush challenged the popular belief that
drinking benefited society, warning of alcohol addiction’s negative effects on individuals’ health and the
nation’s future.
Click here to continue to Part 3.
Author Information
Brandon J. Murrill
Legislative Attorney
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