The United States Of America

The Constitution And Democracy

Prohibition Party
Prohibition Party, a political organization in the United States that opposes the sale and consumption of alcoholic liquors. The party was founded in 1869, but efforts to ban liquor had already begun. Between 1846 and 1856, 13 northern and western states adopted prohibition laws. Agitation for prohibition dwindled during the Civil War (1861-1865), but then revived because of public concern over the phenomenal growth of the liquor business and because of the Whiskey Ring  frauds during the administration of President Ulysses GRANT .

The Rev. John Russell of Michigan, working through a Masonic organization, organized a prohibition convention in Chicago in 1869. For the first time women participated in an American political convention on equal terms with men. The delegates voted to create a party to advance their cause. The party immediately entered candidates in state and local Elections, and in 1872 James Black of Pennsylvania became the first party candidate for President Of The United States. He polled barely 5,000 votes but the party contested every presidential election thereafter.

The Women's Christian Temperance Union (founded in 1874) and the Anti-Saloon League (1893) supported the party's program, as did temperance societies in many Protestant churches. Between 1880 and 1890 Kansas, Iowa, North Dakota, and South Dakota adopted statewide prohibition. In 1884 the 25,000 votes cast in New York for John P. St. John, the Prohibition candidate for president, probably cost the Republicans  that state and the election.

Although the party also advocated Woman Suffrage, currency reform, and other plans unrelated to prohibition, it never received more than the 270,000 votes-2.5% of the total-given to John Bidwell, the presidential candidate in 1892. Such low totals did not reflect rapidly growing public sentiment for Prohibition. In 1919 the party's goal was realized with the ratification of the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution barring the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors.

But national prohibition failed and the amendment was overturned in 1933. Although the party continued to put up candidates for office at the state and federal level its influence was minuscule. Its 1972 presidential candidate received only 13,000 votes. Twenty years later, its candidate Earl Dodge received only 691 votes in the 1992 presidential election. The party, however, continues to urge the repeal of all laws legalizing liquor, takes a conservative stand on most aspects of domestic and foreign policy, calls for civil rights but opposes forced integration in school systems, criticizes the income tax and federal aid to education, and questions the soundness of the Social Security system.

The party maintains a historical collection of books, records, and papers in Denver, Colo., and at the University of Michigan.