Yankee pragmatism and thrift win

Washington, October 1923: the Roaring Twenties are just hitting full stride; the stock market is on the rise; Calvin Coolidge is in the Oval Office--and there's no such thing as legal alcoholic beverages in the United States, thanks to the Volstead Act and the 18th Amendment to the Constitution.

But after several years, it's obvious that enforcing prohibition is at minimum a herculean task, if not simply impossible. To impose rigorous enforcement would take a sizable fraction of the American population, and would cost untold billions, even then. Thus, the following at a news conference held by the president...

"Good afternoon. Got a lot to cover today. First, the budget for next year is under review, and we're always looking for ways to save taxpayers' money. I've had the Director of the Budget checking a few things, and he found this: we're throwing away good money on prohibition.

It doesn't work, and it can't work. Too costly, too many men needed, too many miles of border to watch. I'm calling for Congress to pass a repeal amendment, and for the states to ratify it. We need to stop spending on something pointless..."

Pandemonium erupts: Silent Cal, the paragon of Yankee puritanism, advocating repeal? But then again, "thrifty" doesn't even approach Cal's persona. And he can do something that most people want--bring about repeal--and save taxes at the same time: a true master stroke.

So where do we go from here? It would seem the GOP has stolen a march on the Democrats, and would stand to gain substantially from northern ethnic Democrats. Sure, the Bible Belt won't buy it, but the folks there wouldn't vote for Coolidge anyhow.

Consider, then, repeal in the mid-1920s at Coolidge's behest in an effort to cut taxes. How does this pan out?
 
Coolidge became President in August of '23, wait two years and he'll have the mandate to do that. He tries this on over the corpse of Harding and he has no career.
 
Hmmm... So soon after the passage of Prohibition, would it be possible to repeal it?

How about, he makes a public announcement that the Feds won't even TRY to enforce it, and just let it be a dead letter.

Hmmm... no, 'cause most of the enforcement was done by state and local officials. Besides, promoting the ignoring of the Constitution would be a really bad precedent. Mind you, it might be very different sort of PoD.
 
I could see a gradual roll back occurring first, namely Coolidge limiting prohibition to hard liquor as a means to cut costs. Then a few years later he completely rolls back the entire thing.
 
I could see a gradual roll back occurring first, namely Coolidge limiting prohibition to hard liquor as a means to cut costs. Then a few years later he completely rolls back the entire thing.
Ah, but that's the one thing you can't really do.

You have a constitutional amendment outlawing alcohol. Unless you encourage people to ignore the constitution, it's an all or nothing affair.

Edit: or you can re-amend the constitution, but you're not going to do that to just get rid of hard liquor. Wouldn't work.
 
Ah, but that's the one thing you can't really do.

You have a constitutional amendment outlawing alcohol. Unless you encourage people to ignore the constitution, it's an all or nothing affair.

Edit: or you can re-amend the constitution, but you're not going to do that to just get rid of hard liquor. Wouldn't work.

They did pass a law right before the amendment was repealed OTL that allowed for some very "soft" liquors (ie., very low alcohol content beers) to be sold openly for drinking. So there's always the option to redefine what liquor actually means (the amendment itself does not). If, for instance, "liquor" was redefined to mean only beverages with methanol (ie., only poison), then anyone could sell whatever alcoholic beverages they wanted, no problem.
 
They did pass a law right before the amendment was repealed OTL that allowed for some very "soft" liquors (ie., very low alcohol content beers) to be sold openly for drinking. So there's always the option to redefine what liquor actually means (the amendment itself does not). If, for instance, "liquor" was redefined to mean only beverages with methanol (ie., only poison), then anyone could sell whatever alcoholic beverages they wanted, no problem.
Yeah. In other words, it's not against the letter, merely the spirit of the Amendment.
 
They did pass a law right before the amendment was repealed OTL that allowed for some very "soft" liquors (ie., very low alcohol content beers) to be sold openly for drinking. So there's always the option to redefine what liquor actually means (the amendment itself does not). If, for instance, "liquor" was redefined to mean only beverages with methanol (ie., only poison), then anyone could sell whatever alcoholic beverages they wanted, no problem.
The amendment wording says "intoxicating liquors". While 'liquor' by itself is open to re-definition, and small beer, say, isn't terribly intoxicating, I think anything you can get drunk on is pretty much, by definition, covered. Even American beer...
 
The amendment wording says "intoxicating liquors". While 'liquor' by itself is open to re-definition, and small beer, say, isn't terribly intoxicating, I think anything you can get drunk on is pretty much, by definition, covered. Even American beer...
Yes, but Congress could simply amend the Volstead Act. This all depends, as usual, on the acquiescence of nine old men in Washington...
 
There was a attempt to ban Root Beer, that failed, due to the lawyers pointing up the very low percentage of alcohol 0.0?
 
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