Prohibited the manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors within the United States.
Decisions and events within six years of ratification.
1917
Two months after the United States enters World War I, Congress makes it a crime to interfere with military operations or recruitment. The Sedition Act of 1918 extends it to “disloyal” speech about the government; that extension is repealed in 1920.
Source: National Archives
1918
No. Manufacturing was not commerce, and the law reached into matters reserved to the states.
Source: Opinion of the Court
1919
No. Speech that creates a “clear and present danger” of evils Congress may prevent can be punished, especially in wartime.
Source: Opinion of the Court
1919
Yes, the convictions stood. Justice Holmes, joined by Justice Brandeis, dissented in an opinion later cited as a foundation of modern free speech law.
Source: Opinion of the Court
1920
Justice Department raids under Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer arrest thousands of suspected radicals in more than thirty cities, many without warrants; hundreds of non-citizens are deported.
Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation
1924
Sets national-origin quotas based on the 1890 census and bars immigration from most of Asia.
1924
Grants citizenship to all Native Americans born in the United States. Some states continue to bar Native Americans from voting until 1957.
Source: Library of Congress
1925
Yes, the conviction stood, but the Court assumed that freedom of speech and press are protected against the states by the Fourteenth Amendment.
Source: Opinion of the Court