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. 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.
Proposal and Ratification
The eighteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States
was proposed to the legislatures of the several States by the
Sixty-fifth Congress, on the 18th of December, 1917, and was
declared, in a proclamation of the Secretary of State, dated the
29th of January, 1919, to have been ratified by the legislatures
of 36 of the 48 States. The dates of ratification were:
Mississippi, January 8, 1918; Virginia, January 11, 1918;
Kentucky, January 14, 1918; North Dakota, January 25, 1918; South
Carolina, January 29, 1918; Maryland, February 13, 1918; Montana,
February 19, 1918; Texas, March 4, 1918; Delaware, March 18,
1918; South Dakota, March 20, 1918; Massachusetts, April 2, 1918;
Arizona, May 24, 1918; Georgia, June 26, 1918; Louisiana, August
3, 1918; Florida, December 3, 1918; Michigan, January 2, 1919;
Ohio, January 7, 1919; Oklahoma, January 7, 1919; Idaho, January
8, 1919; Maine, January 8, 1919; West Virginia, January 9, 1919;
California, January 13, 1919; Tennessee, January 13, 1919;
Washington, January 13, 1919; Arkansas, January 14, 1919; Kansas,
January 14, 1919; Alabama, January 15, 1919; Colorado, January
15, 1919; Iowa, January 15, 1919; New Hampshire, January 15,
1919; Oregon, January 15, 1919; Nebraska, January 16, 1919; North
Carolina, January 16, 1919; Utah, January 16, 1919; Missouri,
January 16, 1919; Wyoming, January 16, 1919.
Ratification was completed on January 16, 1919. See Dillon v.
Gloss, 256 U.S. 368, 376 (1921).
The amendment was subsequently ratified by Minnesota on January
17, 1919; Wisconsin, January 17, 1919; New Mexico, January 20,
1919; Nevada, January 21, 1919; New York, January 29, 1919;
Vermont, January 29, 1919; Pennsylvania, February 25, 1919;
Connecticut, May 6, 1919; and New Jersey, March 9, 1922.
The amendment was rejected (and not subsequently ratified) by
Rhode Island.
