In the midterm elections of 2010, significant portions of the American electorate called for smaller government and greater freedoms. Together, they brought a sea-change to American politics, sending a number of small-government advocates and first-time politicians to Washington. If the various campaign promises are to be believed, America faces a fundamental realignment in the way its federal government relates to individual citizens and local governments. Although many of the newly-elected politicians point to the New Deal as the origin of bloated or ineffective government, it actually was the Eighteenth Amendment-which brought Prohibition to America--that first catapulted the federal government toward its current stature. Ironically, the Eighteenth Amendment was a conservative agenda that was, at core, intended to recognize the supremacy of state-based preferences. The Amendment, however, also was the product of unreflective politicians, politicians swayed by the opinions of a relatively small but politically active segment of the American population. As a consequence, its lessons remain relevant today: as with the events in 2010, a series of federal elections in the 1910's brought a wave of new, strongly-opinionated politicians to Washington. Those representatives, fulfilling campaign promises, hurried Prohibition into existence without proper reflection or protections. State and local governments were unprepared for the burdens that subsequently fell to them. The results included: (1) widespread abuses of civil rights, (2) myopic, single-issue governance, and (3) the unintended explosion in the size, stature, and responsibility of the federal government. Despite the importance of this political movement, there is remarkably little known about Prohibition's rise and its subsequent fall at the state and local levels. Historical accounts of the "noble experiment" provide sweeping statements of inefficacy and inefficiency at the federal level, but little information about how state and local officials grappled with the Amendment's commands, commands for which the states purportedly asked and from which they allegedly benefited. While the historical literature undoubtedly is correct that federal enforcement failed, the focus on the federal government is only half the story. Abdication of enforcement responsibilities by state and local authorities and the revolt of the American masses were what truly undid Prohibition. The lessons cannot be overlooked as America approaches a new era of "populist governance." This Article seeks to fill the void in the historical literature by examining primary sources and highlighting the frenzied legislative rise of Prohibition and the ground-level realities that forced the Amendment's death. In short, I bring light to the reality that it was a group of 4,500 white, Protestant legislators, wrongly believing they had the support of most Americans, that declared America "dry." The result was a moralistic Amendment both unfamiliar to the increasingly diverse population of America and unenforceable in the eyes of local authorities. Fourteen years later, the experiment had officially failed, leaving a bloody trail of violence, a symphony of civil rights abuses, an unseemly legacy of corruption, and a lasting distrust of government action. In no place was the disconnect between legislators and the public more apparent than Chicago, where celebrity gangsters and larger-than-life politicians plied their trade. The city's example, this Article explains, served as the rallying cry for repeal and a caricature of the era's worst excesses. Its legacy also serves as a cautionary tale against legislative action that overlooks competing sentiments and shuns reasoned debate--twin pillars of sound constitutional governance in modern America--for quick political victories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]