Wrong.
"Although the Eighteenth Amendment would probably never have materialized except for the [Anti-Saloon] league," observed James H. Timberlake, a perceptive historian of the prohibition movement in the 1910s, "it is equally certain that the league would never have attained its success had not temperance reform been caught up in the progressive spirit itself."' Progressivism and prohibition were, in his view, closely related middle-class reform movements seeking to deal with social and economic problems through the use of governmental power. They drew on the same broad base of support and moral idealism, and they proposed similar solutions to society's ills. Examinations of temperance campaigns in such varied states as Texas, Washington, Tennessee, New Mexico, Virginia, California, and Missouri support Timberlake's conclusion that "prohibition was actually written into the Constitution as a progressive reform."' [...] The brief debate over the prohibition-amendment resolution repeated long-standing arguments and centered around four issues: revenue, property rights, the effectiveness of statutory prohibition, and the wisdom of increasing the power of the federal government. The debate proceeded along conservative-progressive lines. [...] Destroying the value of liquor-industry property without compensation was criticized as unjust and as setting a bad precedent. [...] Some southern conservatives expressed concern about the growing power of the federal government and the intervention of that government into local affairs.
Repealing National Prohibition, David Kyvig, Copyright 1979 by the University of Chicago
Most important, however, the failed effort to remove Clinton appears to have encouraged the belief of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney that impeachment is an ineffective constitutional restraint and that a president seeking to accumulate authority in the White House could do so without effective challenge. Ironically, Kenneth Starr's effort to topple one president has helped empower another. Ten years later, the consequences of the Starr report are still unfolding.
David E. Kyvig, distinguished research professor at Northern Illinois University
Btw ConservingStupidity, what were you ZOTTED for 6 months ago?