Months ago we opened up this gorgeous new space renovated with the great foundation. And youre hearing me from the state of the art cool mics on these beautiful new seats. Its a thrill to see so many people here to celebrate the opening of the return of our great exhibit, american spirit. [applause] i want you to go see it after the show if you havent seen it yet and cspan viewers i want you to come to philadelphia to see this beautiful exhibit which tells an amazing constitutional story that we are going to talk about tonight. That is the constitutional story that poses an incredible question. How did it happen . How did it happen that america voluntarily by a vote of 46 states with only two states dissenting in 1919 decided essentially to ban intoxicating liquors with the 18th amendment and then only 14 years later by a similarly overwhelming majority of 46 states with only two states dissenting changed its mind and repealed the 18th amendment in the 21st amendment, if only time in our constitutional history that an amendment has been repealed and it took only 14 years. I hear a bravo from one in the crowd. [laughter] those who are here enjoying a full bar imagining that its 1933 and not 1919. So everyone is enjoying their drinks. Its an incredible story. I had to cram to learn about it but we have to talk about it two of americas leading experts. Im going to introduce them in a second. But before i do, i just want to say again how thrilled everyone at the center is to welcome our new chair Vice President joe biden. [applause] it is so meaningful that he joins this incredible group. He was preceded by governor jeb bush, before him president clinton and before him president h. W. Bush. No other institution in america has brought together leaders from both sides of the aisle to the unite around our shared love of the u. S. Constitution and the importance of teaching it to all americans. Thats what tonights show and exhibit is about. Educating ourselves about this history which is forgotten largely today but so important and can teach us so much about who we are as a nation, how the constitution has changed and how we should think about constitutional change today. It is now my great pleasure to introduce our phenomenal copanelist lisa anderson, a historian at juilliard. Her book is the politics and prohibition american governance and the prohibition party. And joshua is an historian the auts of of a bunch of spectacular groups. Please join me in welcoming lisa and joshua. [applause] so glad to be here. Let us jump into it. Lisa, pretend its 1919. There we go. Theres actually water in here. Thats true, theres a possibility him. We will spend the whole show talking about this question how did it happen . Lisa the first part is that him drunk people are annoying, especially if youre not drunk. [laughter] that really becomes him him the starting point. There are a few pathways that people come to prohibition. One is simply employers. It is dangerous to have employees drion a job, especially when america industrialized, that becomes greater. You have people coming from a fundamentally religious point of view. Part of this is the desire to restrict something they see essenes will as sinful. Part of it is something that prohibits the him process of salvation. You need selfdetermination to have that. Part of it is him political. Him there is a growing movement of opposition towards corporations and trust. The liquor industry fits that profile. A lot of people pushed back seeing it as infiltrated it could affect the future of democracy in america. Jeffrey fascinating. Joshua, tell us about more. There are also immigrants in the urban areas versus dry people in the rural. Progressives who we think is of liberal turn out to be an himiti him an himit antiimmigrant. Joshua there is an incredible backdrop. Some may seem familiar today. This is a time 30 years leading up to prohibition. The massive influx of immigrants from country that today would be considered not particularly unusual, but at the time immigrants from italy and ireland and eastern europe, and greece were considered quite foreign and not necessarily part of the fabric as old stock american populace they had drink and cultures. They came to represent to many americans, something that was foreign and dangerous and not part of the organic american nation. It was a time of rapid demographic transmission. Rapid urbanization. You had quite a lot of political and cultural contests that grew up around that. It was also a time of Cultural Innovation and a time when gender roles were getting thrown in the air because women were moving into the workplace and more people were in the cities. You put all of this together and Something Like alcohol, or the provision prohibition of alcohol became representative of a number of cultural touch points. Became the type of issue that people could latch onto in a representative way, even if not always consistently. As you said, many precedents we think of as liberals, many of progressives we think of as liberals, many of them latched on to prohibition for their own reason. By the same token, many antiprogressives, protectives of the old guard also embraced prohibition for their own reasons. People looked at the lives they used to look at the question, that would influence the reasoning for embracing an antiliquor platform. Host a bipartisan movement uniting these urban progressives with rural. Evangelicals lets take us up to the progressive era. The question of, whiskey tax is important. 40 of funding the National Government since the time of the founding when the whiskey tax the 25 tax George Washingtons administration imposed created the whiskey rebellion. Tell us about the Politics Around 1913, 1914 during the tell us about the 1912 at a time when more than half the states is not obvious to federal amendments. There were huge economic reasons to avoid it. Those reasons seemed so significant that particularly in your industry, americans were starting to transition away from distilled alcohol and towards. Eer that technologically possible to transport and store. When that transition happens, all the people involved in the they are better organized than the distilled Liquor Industries they are doing pretty good because their rates of sale are going up and they know there is this long with thef cooperation federal government, and the federal government is relying upon beer excise taxes as a means of gaining revenue. They actually dont organize particularly well to stop prohibition, simply because they cant believe it could happen. It seems terribly naive that the people who were proprohibition also believed it would not happen anytime soon, so it makes a little more sense. It seems to have ambushed both sides simultaneously. Theres a law in 1913 that would allow states to restrict what is imported into them and taft vetoes that law. He wants to be on the Supreme Court. He hates being president and use everything through constitutional terms. Is overriden by a 2 3 majority probably because of the intervention of a guy called wheeler, it was one of the political operatives who stays ahead of the league. About his role and how to thirds majority of the building of congress around this time that will chose the amendment. Wheeler is a fascinating character, arguably one of the first modern lobbyists. Hes a product of this area when you sort of mention the progressives earlier. There are a bunch of progressive operatives that give rise to modern advocacy model, people visiting,organizing organizing letter writing campaigns, letter to the editor programs, Public Meetings the kinds of things we think of today is being a simple part central part of modern organized political action. That was really the Antisaloon League. You also saw other advocates oftentimes intersecting with them. People trying to secure passage of antifederal labor laws, people trying to secure passage of immigration restriction or laws loosening, it was a time of heightened for political activism. The league actually mobilized public opinion. Jeffrey wheeler was described as an older version of net flanders ned flanders. Lisa if he was terrifying, wheeler would be that. He had an insane organizational sense and a willingness to lets say pressure. Even if this involves them removing people from office by circulating things that were unsavory, by making it appear that people were neutral actually had a close relationship. He was not above those techniques. He used them quite a bit. That is when we talk about the Antisaloon League, for most historians we call it the first Major Pressure group. Something different and special in comparison to public politics related by political parties. There was a movement happening at the same time where people were trying to clean up political parties. They were trying to make primary elections run legitimately. They were trying to create initiative and referendum to establish better procedures for bringing forward candidates. All sorts of regulations to try to make clinical parties that are and more democratic. All of a sudden the Antisaloon League came in and said, we dont need political parties, we can represent the people directly. That became an overwhelming sort of jolt to the entire way that people organized politics. No longer was a dependent on political parties, there were also now social interest groups. Jeffrey imagine a populist force rising up in challenging the political establishment. Jeffrey imagine a populist lisa they looks like populist forces, and he said they were, but were not quite sure he was representing that many people. He kept very secret records. Jeffrey and there were no gallup polls been. We do know that by 1913, wheeler was able to persuade two thirds of congress to override the veto, even the taft was against prohibition. Wilson who vanquished taft in 1912 is not clear how he stands. In 1917 and all of a sudden world war i is neigh and wilson gives this dramatic address that veto, even the taft was against congress on april 2, 1917, declaring war on germany. Two days later on april 4, congress by a two thirds vote proposes the prohibition amendment. Tell us the story about how part of that reflected the xenophobic anger at socalled german brewers and what was the role of world war i in pushing this amendment over the edge. Joshua i think world war i catalyzes social economic demographic forces that have been in play for many years. Many wars, including world war i put the economy on steroids, which in effect will, in this case, accelerate patterns of urbanization and industrialization. Moving a lot more women and rural people into urban settings, into the workforce. Like other wars, it offends a lot of older cultural patterns. Moving a lot more women and rural people into urban it places into a spotlight this question of who is an american, brewing for some years. Lisa brewing joshua beer on my mind. German americans would be suspect during the war, but immediately after the war, and they talk context of the revolution, a lot of people in the u. S. Became suspect. There is a larger discussion whether they are fit for it places into a spotlight this citizenship. Whether they are italians who are suspected of being an artist or Eastern European jews suspected of being communist or socialist, these people all seem very suspect particularly in the context of the aftermath of the war that required immense amount of mobilization and a focus on unity of the american spirit. It provides an opportunity for people who have for some time been worried about these trends, to actually zero in on war that required immense amount particular issues, like Alcohol Consumption, but also sexual it allows them to grab these issues and use them in a representative way to talk about a larger constellation of concerns. Jeffrey the amendment is propose on april 4, 1917, and it is ratified in 1919, about a year and a half later. The ratification is by three corridors of the state legislatures. Time for a reminder about how you can amend the constitution. There are two ways to propose and ratify. An amendment can be proposed by two thirds vote of both houses of congress, which is what happened with the 18th amendment. Or by a convention called at the request of two thirds of the state legislators. People who are calling for a balanced budget, a convention of the states today have now gotten seven states short of the two thirds that are necessary to call a new constitutional convention. That would be the first time that proposal mechanism would be used in u. S. History to ratify any three quarters of the state legislators or ratification of three quarters of special conventions called in the states. The 18th amended for prohibition was ratified by the legislative method. It was repealed the first time in American History that ratification by state convention has ever been used. Thanks for indulging me on that brief article five primer. We had some Great Middle School kids here today. I quizzed them about how you amended. They got it. It was wonderful. Lisa give those teachers gold stars. Jeffrey and cspan viewers, if you have further doubts about how you should learn about how to amend the constitution check out the interactive constitution that the National Constitution center has created with the Federalist Society and the american constitutional society. You will see scholars writing about the constitution. We have a great explainer on article five. Back to the ratification. It takes three quarters of the state legislators. How did ratification go . Obviously well covered. Lisa it was fast. That was probably the most important thing. This is where a lot of the later critiques come into play about how democratic essentially was this amendment. The speed is important because of two factors one means that soldiers in world war i were having difficulty communicating with their representatives in a state legislatures. Theyre having trouble communicating in ways that voters want to real to articulate to their percentages. That has a factor. They dont have enough time. The other thing that comes into play is that the speed means that many people of the state legislators voting on ratifying this particular amendment were elected before prohibition was set as a national issue. In many cases they were elected by constituents who did not know that representatives position on prohibition. There are two ways in which the processs speed might later be seen of indication it failed to meet the standard of deliberation. That is a critical prerequisite for democracy. Jeffrey it is critical. That is the whole point of ratification. People have to deliberate an issue before the constitution can be amended. That is a fascinating process failure. Tell us about how some of these state legislatures are apportioned. That means that rural votes count for more than urban. Joshua voting in the middle part of the 19th century that liberalized for the most part. There were many states in which alien residents who declared their intention to become an american citizen can vote. There were very few registrations. There were very few residency requirements. Americans have long done away with requirements that v taxpayers or on land. That such taxpayers own nland. There was a time the rise of a very vocal working class, the rise of the Union Movement that many middleclass employers who came to embrace prohibition follows suspect. You see a rash of laws of the state and local double that make it harder to vote. Laws restricting registration, voter id laws for the first time in American History. Residency requirements in states that previously allowed noncitizens who had declared their intent to become citizens, they were no longer allowed to vote. It became much harder for working people who were transient, and did not always have the ability to document the residency to participate. That meant a large part of Voter Participation is a ratio of eligible, meaning of age adults drops off in the late 19th century. A lot of states are apportioning legislative districts and congressional districts in a way that diltures the urban population or they are relying on citys census numbers from 1900 that do not reflect the moving into cities and the arrival of new americans. There is definitely an anti democratic strain to the kinds of things. Theyre not always done with the intention necessarily of limiting the franchise or embracing some sort of regressive type of agenda. Progressives, who you are pointing out earlier, attempting pointing out earlier, attempting to improve the electoral process are instituting processes but also make it difficult to vote. But theyre doing it with good intention. There is case to be made that a lot of the sort of the compulsiveness of this argument in the 1920s was the fact that a lot of people never viewed prohibition is a legitimate exercise of the democratic process. A lot of people never viewed jeffrey this process that is supposed to speak to the deliberate sense of the people may have failed for this malapportioned that and other reasons. The amendment is ratified in 1919. It becomes law and it is up to congress to say what it means. Congress proposes the ball stud act which sets the limit for permissible spirits at a low percentage. Surprisingly low. Many people said, it will not cover beer, it turned out it did. Wilson is so upset that he vetoes the act. He says he will wait a year. People felt they were sold a bill of goods and got more of a restriction. Lisa the people who were paying attention probably felt that way. Despite the fact that voting turnout is significant. We are getting numbers between 85 and 90 voting turnout in some elections. None of the less, the amount of educated voting is not always high. People mostly voted for whatever Political Party their neighbor voted for. There was not necessarily a lot of attention to the intricacies of what exactly they were setting into play. You see with the ball stud act that people would vote at 2 . They would have a near beer product. That quickly became clear that would not be the case. A lot of people who had hoped that congress would interpret the new amendments in a way that was generous for liquor providers they saw themselves as friends to the federal government. They had been funding a for such a long time were rather shocked to find out that was not the case. They had a year to kind of reorient. Amazingly, because of the amendment was written, you cou