ABSTRACT
Prohibition has often been described as a great mistake. This conclusion often generates the further judgment that Repeal should simply have been a swift undoing of that mistake. This attitude is reflected by legal commentators who criticize the 21st Amendment for doing more than repealing the 18th Amendment. The assertion that Prohibition did not work is broad and ambiguous. Was the error in establishing one centralized law with largely decentralized enforcement? Was it in imposing a single solution to a problem for which no national solution was possible because of varying practices and values with regard to alcoholic beverage consumption? Was the problem the illegitimacy of sumptuary legislation?1
