The Twenty-First Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified on 5 December 1933, repealed the Eighteenth Amendment and ended federal Prohibition of alcohol in the United States. It is the only constitutional amendment to repeal a prior amendment, and one of the few to explicitly delegate regulatory authority to the states. The amendment consists of three sections: the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment, a provision allowing states and localities to regulate or prohibit alcohol within their own jurisdictions, and a transportation clause barring the importation of alcohol into any state in violation of that state's laws.

The Eighteenth Amendment, ratified in 1919, had prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquors nationwide. Enforcement under the Volstead Act proved difficult and controversial throughout the 1920s. By the early 1930s, growing public opposition, widespread non-compliance, the rise of organized crime linked to illegal alcohol trade, and the economic pressures of the Great Depression had substantially eroded political support for Prohibition. Congress passed the Twenty-First Amendment in February 1933; it was ratified by state conventions - rather than state legislatures, an unusual procedural choice - later that year. For a fuller account, see Twenty-First Amendment - History.

Section 1 formally repeals the Eighteenth Amendment. Section 2 provides that the transportation or importation of intoxicating liquors into any state, territory, or possession of the United States in violation of the laws thereof is prohibited. Section 3 specified that ratification was to be by state conventions and set a deadline for that process. The practical effect was to return primary regulatory authority over alcohol to the states, producing a patchwork of laws that persists today: some states permit broad retail sale, others retain partial or total prohibition at the county or municipal level. Courts have debated the scope of Section 2 - particularly whether it insulates state alcohol regulations from Commerce Clause or other constitutional challenges - and that question has produced a substantial body of case law.

All fifty states permit some form of legal alcohol sale, though regulatory structures vary widely. Several hundred counties and municipalities remain dry or partially dry under local option laws authorized by state law. Three-tier distribution systems - separating producers, distributors, and retailers - are mandated in most states and are frequently cited in commerce disputes. Direct-to-consumer shipping of wine and spirits has generated litigation over whether state barriers to such shipments are valid exercises of Section 2 authority or impermissible interference with interstate commerce. The Supreme Court addressed part of this question in Granholm v. Heald (2005), holding that states could not discriminate against out-of-state wineries while permitting in-state direct sales. The Court extended that principle further in Tennessee Wine & Spirits Retailers Assn. v. Thomas (2019), applying it to retailer licensing requirements and further narrowing the scope of permissible state discrimination under Section 2. Subsequent rulings have continued to refine the boundaries.

Debate over the Twenty-First Amendment tends to cluster around several distinct questions: the proper scope of state authority under Section 2, the legitimacy of three-tier distribution requirements, and the broader historical lessons of Prohibition and its repeal.

• Broad state authority view: Some legal scholars and state regulators argue that Section 2 grants states near-plenary power to regulate alcohol, including the ability to favor in-state producers or restrict direct shipment, as a deliberate constitutional choice to insulate alcohol policy from normal Commerce Clause scrutiny. See Broad State Authority - Viewpoint.

• Commerce Clause parity view: Others contend that Section 2 does not exempt states from general constitutional constraints, and that discriminatory or protectionist alcohol regulations are subject to the same dormant Commerce Clause analysis as other goods. See Commerce Clause Parity - Viewpoint.

• Federalism and local control view: A related position holds that alcohol regulation is a paradigm case for subsidiarity - local communities should determine their own norms around alcohol, and federal uniformity is neither required nor desirable. See Federalism and Local Control - Viewpoint.

• Prohibition revisionism: A minority of scholars argue that Prohibition's effects have been selectively remembered, and that it achieved measurable public health gains that are understated in popular accounts. See Prohibition Revisionism - Viewpoint.

• Twenty-First Amendment - History
• Twenty-First Amendment - Debate
• Prohibition
• Prohibition - History
• Eighteenth Amendment
• Volstead Act
• Alcohol Regulation
• Federalism

1. U.S. Const. amend. XXI (1933).
2. U.S. Const. amend. XVIII (1919), repealed by amend. XXI.
3. National Prohibition Act (Volstead Act), Pub. L. 66-66, 41 Stat. 305 (1919).
4. Granholm v. Heald, 544 U.S. 460 (2005).
5. Tennessee Wine & Spirits Retailers Assn. v. Thomas, 588 U.S. 504 (2019).
6. Daniel Okrent, Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition (Scribner, 2010).
7. Michael Lerner, Dry Manhattan: Prohibition in New York City (Harvard University Press, 2007).
8. George F. Will, “The Lessons of Prohibition,” The Washington Post, various; cited for general historiography of repeal debate.