What is the meaning of Volstead act?

Answer 1

The National Prohibition Act of 1919 (commonly called the Volstead Act) was enabling legislation enacted to provide for the implementation of the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which established National Prohibition of alcoholic beverages.

The Eighteenth Amendment was very brief and general in its provisions. It stated simply that "the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited" and that "Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."

What constituted "intoxicating liquors" and other terms needed specific legal definitions as well as penalties to be legislated before enforcement could occur.

The required enabling law was called the Volstead Act after Congressman Andrew J. Volstead who chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee and whose job it was to sponsor the legislation. The Eighteenth Amendment was only 111 words whereas the Volstead Act was over 25 pages in length.

The U.S. Supreme Court held that the Volstead Act had become null and unenforceable upon repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment because it had rested on a grant of authority to Congress by that Amendment. Therefore prosecutions for violations of the Act that had not reached final judgments of conviction before the date of Repeal (December 5, 1933) had to be dismissed.