Why Did Prohibition Pass and Then Collapse So Fast? | America's Written Constitution

Between the Twelfth and Twenty-Second Amendments, about 15 percent of vice presidents won their party's nomination. Since term limits, more than half have. Akhil Reed Amar explains the connection. This lecture covers the amendments that fall between the Progressive Era and the 1960s. Amar first returns to Prohibition, which its supporters saw as of a piece with other reforms, backed by the temperance movement and opposed by a liquor lobby that feared women's suffrage for exactly that reason. He explains its rapid repeal through a process argument: the Eighteenth Amendment came out of malapportioned legislatures that overweighted dry rural counties, while the Twenty-First is the only amendment Congress sent to specially elected state conventions, which were far closer to one person, one vote. The second half traces the two-term tradition from Washington's decision to step down through its unresolved ambiguities, since Grant, Cleveland, and Theodore Roosevelt all tested whether it barred a third term or a third consecutive one, until Franklin Roosevelt's four elections produced the Twenty-Second Amendment. Amar closes on its unintended consequence: a president barred from a third term runs by proxy, through the vice president he chose. Chapters: 00:00 Where the tour has reached 02:14 Prohibition as a Progressive reform 05:53 Why the Eighteenth Amendment fell so quickly 07:55 Malapportionment, and the conventions that undid it 11:31 The Twenty-Second Amendment stands alone 13:07 Washington's precedent, and its ambiguities 16:14 Grant, Cleveland, and the Roosevelts 18:17 The case for and against term limits 20:22 Second-term presidents as lame ducks 22:26 How term limits empowered the vice presidency Learning objectives: After watching, you'll be able to: - Explain why Prohibition was understood as a Progressive reform - Compare the ratification processes behind the Eighteenth and Twenty-First Amendments - Trace the two-term tradition from Washington through Franklin Roosevelt - Identify the ambiguities the unwritten two-term custom never resolved - Analyze how presidential term limits reshaped the vice presidency 📺 Watch the full playlist on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCq6-l8oFuvk 🎓 Enroll on Coursera for assessments and a certificate: https://www.coursera.org/learn/written-constitution 🌐 Explore more learning opportunities on Yale Online: https://online.yale.edu/courses/americas-written-constitution