Was reconstruction a noble experiment that failed?
Another example of a fundamental clash of cultures — but one with far greater national consequences — was Prohibition. In 1919, after almost a century of agitation, the 18th Amendment to the Constitution was enacted, prohibiting the manufacture, sale or transportation of alcoholic beverages. Prohibition, although intended to eliminate the saloon and the drunkard from American society, served to create thousands of illegal drinking places called “speakeasies,” and a new and increasingly profitable form of criminal activity — the transportation of liquor, known as “bootlegging.” Prohibition, sometimes referred to as the “noble experiment,” was repealed in 1933.
