18th and 21st Amendments Theme of States' Rights

How do you get to states' rights from a constitutional Amendment? After all, the Constitution is about federal law that all the states have to follow. States just can't decide to have segregated schools or take away women's right to vote or establish a state religion. Because: Constitution.

The 21st Amendment bends over backwards to point out that it's not superseding state law. If it's illegal to drink in your home state, the 21st Amendment doesn't allow liquor to be imported there from states that allow it. It's limited in scope—it just repeals the 18th Amendment, which prohibited drinking everywhere, but it lets states keep the alcohol laws already on books if they want to do that.

Plenty of states took the feds up on that choice. In fact, Mississippi held out for decades; they only went "wet" in 1966. Some of the states even tried to use Section 2 of the 21st to mean they could challenge other types of Constitutional requirements. The Supreme Court shut most of those arguments down pretty quickly.

States, and in some cases counties and towns, still have control over how they regulate liquor sales. Just try walking into a Trader Joe's in Connecticut looking for the wine department (once you're 21, of course)—there isn't one. But you can buy beer there. Pennsylvania allowed the sale of liquor after repeal, but only in state-run stores that were established to make life as difficult as possible for Pennsylvanians wanting to buy booze. (It's only very recently that Pennsylvania liberalized its laws about liquor sales.) In Nevada, anything goes (unless you're 21), but in Jackson County, Kentucky? Fuhgeddaboutit. Dry as a bone.

You'd probably be surprised how many counties and towns throughout the U.S. still prohibit the sale and consumption of alcohol. Wonder how they feel about legalizing marijuana?

1. How difficult should it be to repeal a Constitutional Amendment? Why did the states ratify the 21st so fast once it was proposed?
2. How did your own state deal with the sale of alcohol after repeal?
3. Would the repeal have been successful if the states were all required to allow the sale of alcohol?

The 21st Amendment showed that the Constitution is a living document that can change over time.

From the fact that there have been only 27 Amendments since 1789, and ten of them were written about two minutes after the Constitution was ratified, it's clear that the Constitution isn't all that changeable. (Okay, it was actually two years, not two minutes, but they'd been thinking about it before the ink was dry on the Constitution.)