Prohibition and the American People

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Prohibition and the American People

Abraham Lincoln, arguably the greatest president in American history, is believed to have said, “Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man’s appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.” The temperance movement put pressure on government officials to make changes in the U.S., one of these changes was put into play by the 18th amendment. This amendment banned the making, sale, and transportation of alcohol illegal, but not consumption. This time period in the 1920s came to be known as prohibition. There were many unions that formed to ban alcohol for good, but standing in their way was the common man fighting for his right to drink once again. Although many believed that prohibition was rightfully made into law and would help America become more successful, outcomes such as prevalent crime, the law being broken constantly, and police forces being bribed and not enforcing the law, show prohibitionists could not be more wrong.
Prohibition was a recipe for disaster from the very beginning, and many different problems came to the surface because of the change to everyday American life. Organized crime was a direct product of the 18th Amendment. Before the amendment passed, there were few organized crimes and mobs, but shortly after the 18th amendment was passed, they began to flourish. Since there were bans on alcohol, mobs jumped at the opportunity to become rich because the demand for alcohol was so high. Gangsters su...

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...ore, there is no need to ban it from the military. In addition, the grain being used in America did not all need to go toward war efforts. To sum things up, by prohibitionists trying to make this country better they ended up analyzing the situation poorly, fixing little and causing many problems for this country.
Prohibition was one of the few times America really underestimated the cause that law would have on society. A lot of the government, court systems, and police were manipulated and this made our country full of unneeded crime. All that resulted from prohibition were terrible outcomes on every aspect of life. It is hard to find any positive outcomes of that time period because so many things went wrong. There is one lesson that came from all the struggles: do not take away things that are wanted by the large population or things will spiral out of control.

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