Eighteenth and Nineteenth Amendments to the Constitution

The temperance movement in American society dated back to the early nineteenth century, but the Eighteenth Amendment, which prohibited the making, selling, and transporting of alcoholic beverages, had its roots in the First World War. The push for morality was high at this time, and many advocates cried out against the manufacture of liquor at a time when soldiers were starving on the European battlefront. Not only this, but also many played the anti-German card and attacked breweries. Organizations such as the Women's Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League made the final push for the constitutional amendment of Prohibition, which went into effect January 1920. However, support for this cause soon weakened, and with the Twenty-First Amendment (1933), Prohibition was repealed.

Women's suffrage is another cause that dates back to the nineteenth century. After the Civil War, advocates saw the vote given to African-American men, but women had to wait until 1920 to receive suffrage. In the decades leading up to this constitutional amendment, many groups argued for the cause, and in 1890, the National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association merged into the National American Woman Suffrage Association, which emerged as a powerful force behind women's suffrage. President Woodrow Wilson supported this movement in 1918, and Congress passed the amendment in 1919.

Divine, Robert A., T. H. Breen, George M. Fredrickson, and R. Hal Williams. America Past and Present. Revised Sixth Edition, AP* Edition . Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc., 2003. 671-73. Print.

"Eighteenth Amendment", Ohio History Central, July 1, 2005, http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=1493

Web. 3 Feb 2011. <https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDgoaJC7f9WWqOoX9Jyva0Wvj0SSOtQRvkSiSnc40LX7j7c9zXaTWcEZiBm7koAGRp4jJnJdcwQWEnAtBtvhG_nLbCh9pF-Wo-7diXv6emYdj17U7PJhyZNMnGR3MoWUjFtUPU_KvCxuA/s1600/Prohibition.gif>.

Joint Resolution of Congress proposing a constitutional amendment extending the right of suffrage to women, May 19, 1919; Ratified Amendments, 1795-1992; General Records of the United States Government; Record Group 11; National Archives.

Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments to the Constitution

The Sixteenth Amendment, the right of the federal government to enact an income tax, was a long time coming. The first income tax was enacted in 1894, but this was quickly struck down by the Supreme Court. Due to low prices for agricultural goods and high prices for industrial goods, farmers had lobbied for such a tax since the Civil War, and the Democratic Party was behind this movement at the turn of the century. Conservatives in 1909 wanted once and for all prove the impossibility of such a measure, and so they went a step further than the progressives who wanted to add a income tax provision to a tariff bill and offered that it be made a constitutional amendment, believing that such a piece of legislation would never be ratified. But to their shock, the amendment was passed by over three-fourths of the state legislatures, and it was passed by Congress July 2, 1909. The Sixteenth Amendment took effect February 25, 1913, and has been considered one of the most important pieces of legislation in American history.

Originally, senators were elected by state legislatures. In the nineteenth century, however, extended vacancies, differences and discrepancies in the ways states elected their senators, and cases of bribery and other dishonest political methods were signs for need of reform. After the turn of the century, the state of Oregon pioneered a method of identifying the public's choice of senators using the state's primary election. Though many states adopted this process, it eventually became clear that only a constitutional amendment would solve the problems that arise from the state's election of senators. The Seventeenth Amendment was passed in 1912 and was ratified only a few months after the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913.


Divine, Robert A., T. H. Breen, George M. Fredrickson, and R. Hal Williams. America Past and Present. Revised Sixth Edition, AP* Edition . Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc., 2003. 687. Print.

The 16th Amendment, March 15, 1913; Ratified Amendments, 1795-1992; General Records of the United States Government; Record Group 11; National Archives.

Joint Resolution proposing 17th amendment, 1913. Enrolled Acts and Resolutions of Congress, 1789-. General Records of the U.S. Government, Record Group 11, National Archives

"Direct Election of Senators." U.S. Senate. U.S. Senate, n.d. Web. 2 Feb 2011. <http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Direct_Election_Senators.htm>.

Federal Reserve Act

The December 1913 Federal Reserve Act created a central bank for the United States but was in many ways a compromise between those favoring public banking and those favoring private. It emphasized an elastic, flexible currency that was still grounded and stable. The Federal Reserve Act created the Federal Reserve Board and twelve district banks which blended representation from private bankers with presidentially-appointed governors. The Federal Reserve board served to adjust the discount rate, buy and sell government bonds on the open market, and set the reserve ratio. Banks were required to join this system, and within a year, almost half had done so. The Federal Reserve Act has been considered the most important piece of legislation passed within Woodrow Wilson's term, and the Federal Reserve System is still in existence today.

Divine, Robert A., T. H. Breen, George M. Fredrickson, and R. Hal Williams. America Past and Present. Revised Sixth Edition, AP* Edition . Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc., 2003. 682-3. Print.

"American President: Federal Reserve Act Signed--December 23, 1913." Miller Center of Public Affairs. University of Virginia, 2011. Web. 1 Feb 2011. <http://millercenter.org/president/events/12_23>.

Web. 1 Feb 2011. <http://daretodeclare83.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/fed_reserve.jpg>.

Federal Meat Inspection Act & Pure Food and Drug Act

Muckraking abounded in the Progressive Era, a good example of which is Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel The Jungle. The Jungle documented all the dirty little secrets of the meatpacking industry and made them for public view, who met these detailed descriptions with universal disgust and outrage. Though the novel was intended to stir outrage at the deplorable conditions the meatpacking workers labored in, the public was more focused on the deplorable conditions their meat was subject to, and because of this, people bought less meat and demanded more reform. The Federal Meat Inspection Act of 1906 attacked poorly labelled meat goods as well as the spread of food-borne illnesses, and the act answered the public's demand for government inspection and sanitation standards for meat and meatpacking industries.

Further cry for government-backed food and drug safety stemmed from Samuel Hopkins Adams exposé of fraudulent patent medicines in the muckraking magazine Collier's. The now public knowledge that most medications contained alcohol and other poisons caused the Department of Agriculture to push for reform. The Roosevelt administration backed this movement and passed the Pure Food and Drug Act on June 30, 1906. This act created the Food and Drug Administration, required licenses for physicians to prescribe certain medications, and required that drug manufacturers list ingredients on labels.


Divine, Robert A., T. H. Breen, George M. Fredrickson, and R. Hal Williams. America Past and Present. Revised Sixth Edition, AP* Edition . Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc., 2003. 682-3. Print.

Canaday, Marquis. "The Meat Inspection Act of 1906." Suite101.com: Online Magazine and Writers' Network. N.p., 23 Sep 2010. Web. 1 Feb 2011. <http://www.suite101.com/content/the-meat-inspection-act-of-1906-a289424>.

Blackwell, Jon. "1906: Upton Sinclair." The Capital Century -- 100 stories of New Jersey history. The Trentonian, n.d. Web. 1 Feb 2011. <http://www.capitalcentury.com/1906.html>.

"Pure Food and Drug Act." United States History. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Feb 2011. <http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h917.html>.
  
Web. 1 Feb 2011. <http://files.sharenator.com/madcow_184_1_399_quotThe_Junglequot_By_Upton_Sinclair-s399x400-108351-580.jpg>.

Sherman Antitrust Act

The Sherman Antitrust Act is an important piece of legislation in American history. It marks the first attempt at regulating monopolies, and the first law to use the constitutional power of regulating interstate commerce. Trusts were seen as detrimental to competition especially due to their unregulated nature. Democrats and Republicans were united in passing this measure, and they named trusts as "every contract, combination in the form of a trust or otherwise, or conspiracy in restraint of trade or commerce." This ambiguous wording led to the Sherman Antitrust Act to not be utilized for its original intent, however, and its first judicial interpretation of the act proved this. In United States v. E. C. Knight Co., the Supreme Court ruled that the Sherman Antitrust Act didn't apply to manufacturing and thus didn't apply to E. C. Knight Co., even though the E. C. Knight Co. oversaw almost all sugar refineries in the United States; they considered this monopoly of manufacturing only indirectly related to interstate commerce and therefore not subject to the Sherman Antitrust Act.

The Sherman Antitrust Act was also misused because of the poorly worded phrase "restraint of trade." This allowed for big business, the original targets of this law, to sue labor organizations, whose strikes were often literally "in restraint of trade or commerce." In fact, this law was not used properly until the administration of Theodore Roosevelt, who, in 1902, found that the Northern Securities Company, which was headed by many millionaire monopoly moguls, was in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Roosevelt busted more trusts in 1906 and 1907, notably Standard Oil, and President Taft, who had a total of forty-three antitrust cases in his term in office, followed suit.

Divine, Robert A., T. H. Breen, George M. Fredrickson, and R. Hal Williams. America Past and Present. Revised Sixth Edition, AP* Edition . Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc., 2003. 588, 680-81. Print.

Act of July 2, 1890(Sherman Anti-Trust Act), July 2, 1890; Enrolled Acts and Resolutions of Congress, 1789-1992; General Records of the United States Government; Record Group 11; National Archives.

KERMIT L. HALL. "E. C. Knight Co., United States v." The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States. 2005. Encyclopedia.com. 1 Feb. 2011 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

Web. 1 Feb 2011. <http://affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/wp-content/uploads/monopolists_boss_senate.jpg>.