You still have not shown why a constitutional amendment was not required for Prohibition as you contend.
In post #144 you said there was a need for a constitutional amendment. You made the initial claim, yet I'm the one who has to support my challenge to your claim?
Fine. But then you owe me proof why the 18th amendment was required -- some reference or cite to that effect.
"An amendment to the Constitution obviously appealed to temperance reformers more than a federal statute banning liquor. A simple congressional majority could adopt a statute but, with the shift of a relatively few votes, could likewise topple one. Drys feared that an ordinary law would be in constant danger of being overturned owing to pressure from liquor industry interests or the growing population of liquor-using immigrants. A constitutional amendment, on the other hand, though more difficult to achieve, would be impervious to change. Their reform would not only have been adopted, the Anti-Saloon League reasoned, but would be protected from future human weakness and backsliding."
-- druglibrary.org/schaffer/history/rnp/RNP1.html
In addition, Congress did pass some statutes against liquor during this period:
1) The Webb-Kenyon Act in 1913, a long-sought federal statute against transporting liquor into states that wished to block its entry.
2) The Lever Food and Fuel Control Act of August 1917 banned the production of distilled spirits for the duration of the war.
3) The War Prohibition Act of November 1918 forbade the manufacture and sale of all intoxicating beverages of more than 2.75 percent alcohol content, beer and wine as well as hard liquor, until demobilization was completed.
Perhaps the best proof that the federal government had the power to regulate alcohol is the fact that the 21st amendment contained a Section 2. Section 1 repealed the 18th amendment. But Section 2 was added, turning the power to regulate alcohol from the federal government exclusively to the states.
"This Court promptly recognized the impact of the Twenty-First Amendment, noting that it “sanctions the right of a state to legislate concerning intoxicating liquors brought from without, unfettered by the Commerce Clause.”Ziffrin, Inc. v.Reeves, 308 U.S. 132, 138 (1939). This Court has continued to recognize that the Twenty-First Amendment “primarily created an exception to the normal operation of the Commerce Clause,”Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190, 206(1976), and that the resultant authority of the state under the Amendment over importation of alcohol beverages “is transparently clear.”
-- In a Brief for MICHIGAN BEER & WINE WHOLESALERS ASSOCIATION v. ELEANOR HEALD