Proclamation Announcing the Repeal of Prohibition
12/5/1933
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In Presidential Proclamation 2065, President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced the repeal of Prohibition.
Transcript
DATE OF REPEAL OF THE EIGHTEENTH AMENDMENTBY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A PROCLAMATION
WHEREAS the Congress of the United States in second session of the Seventy-second Congress, begun at Washington on the fifth day of December in the year one thousand nine hundred and thirty-two, adopted a resolution in the words and figures following, to wit:
"JOINT RESOLUTION
Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
"Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is hereby proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by conventions in three-fourths of the several States:
"'Article--
"'Section 1. The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.
DATE OF REPEAL OF THE EIGHTEENTH AMENDMENT
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A PROCLAMATION
WHEREAS the Congress of the United States in second session of the Seventy-second Congress, begun at Washington on the fifth day of December in the year one thousand nine hundred and thirty-two, adopted a resolution in the words and figures following, to wit:
"JOINT RESOLUTION
Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
"Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is hereby proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by conventions in three-fourths of the several States:
"'Article--
"'Section 1. The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.
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WHEREAS it appears from a certificate issued December 5, 1933, by the Acting Secretary of State that official notices have been received in the Department of State that on the fifth day of December 1933 conventions in 36 States of the United States, constituting three fourths of the whole number of the States had ratified the said repeal amendment;
NOW, THEREFORE, I, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, President of the United States of America, pursuant to the provisions of section 217 (a) of the said act of June 16, 1933, do hereby proclaim that the eighteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States was repealed on the fifth day of December 1933.
FURTHERMORE, I enjoin upon all citizens of the United States and upon others resident within the jurisdiction thereof to cooperate with the Government in its endeavor to restore greater respect for law and order, by confining such purchases of alcoholic beverages as they may make solely to those dealers or agencies which have been duly licensed by State or Federal license.
Observance of this request, which I make personally to every individual and every family in our Nation, will result in the consumption of alcoholic beverages which have passed Federal inspection, in the break-up and eventual destruction of the notoriously evil illicit liquor traffic, and in the payment of reasonable taxes for the support of Government and thereby in the superseding of other forms of taxation.
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I call specific attention to the authority given by the twenty-first amendment to the Government to prohibit transportation or importation of intoxicating liquors into any State in violation of the laws of such State.
I ask the whole-hearted cooperation of all our citizens to the end that this return of individual freedom shall not be accompanied by the repugnant conditions that obtained prior to the adoption of the eighteenth amendment and those that have existed since its adoption. Failure to do this honestly and courageously will be a living reproach to us all.
I ask especially that no State shall by law or otherwise authorize the return of the saloon either in its old form or in some modern guise.
The policy of the Government will be to see to it that the social and political evils that have existed in the pre-prohibition era shall not be revived nor permitted again to exist. We must remove forever from our midst the menace of the bootlegger and such others as would profit at the expense of good government, law, and order.
I trust in the good sense of the American people that they will not bring upon themselves the curse of excessive use of intoxicating liquors, to the detriment of health, morals, and social integrity.
The objective we seek through a national policy is the education of every citizen towards a greater temperance throughout the Nation.
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IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
DONE at the City of Washington this fifth day of December, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and thirty-three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and fifty-eighth.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
By the President:
William Phillips
Acting Secretary of State.
This primary source comes from the General Records of the United States Government.
National Archives Identifier: 299967
Full Citation: Presidential Proclamation 2065 in which President Franklin D. Roosevelt announces the Repeal of Prohibition; 12/5/1933; Presidential Proclamations, 1791 - 2011; General Records of the United States Government, Record Group 11; National Archives Building, Washington, DC. [Online Version, https://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/repeal-prohibition, March 25, 2025]Activities that use this document
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