Democracy at Rest: Strategic Ratification of the Twenty-First Amendment

The Prohibition (Eighteenth, 1919) and repeal (Twenty-First, 1933) amendments, which represent the only case of a later amendment directly reversing an earlier one, were ratified by the two different methods allowed by Article V of the United States Constitution: the former by state legislatures, the latter by state conventions. This essay examines the legislatures-or-conventions dichotomy as a microcosm of William Riker's treatment of liberalism and populism, with specific attention paid to the state conventions that ratified repeal. Using previously uncollected county data from the special elections to choose the 1933 convention delegates, this study demonstrates that invocation of the convention method was strategic, and intended not only to legitimate the Twenty-First Amendment but also to improve its chances of passage.