Pierre S. du Pont and the Making of an Anti-Prohibition Activist

Abstract

This paper examines the motivations of perhaps the highest-profile crusader for the repeal of the U.S. national prohibition amendment, Pierre S. du Pont II. The paper uses du Pont’s archived correspondence to bear on the question of what motivated his activism. The results are largely congruent with previous studies that linked du Pont’s anti-prohibitionism to a broader conservative ideology, but this paper concludes that prohibition genuinely offended du Pont on several levels. Cultural factors were clearly important, as were collateral issues such as lawlessness and property rights, and these factors seem to have been what initially attracted du Pont to the repeal movement. While it is fair to say that he hoped prohibition repeal would be a defensive foothold against the growing power of the federal government relative to corporations and citizens, his anti-prohibition crusade was more than just an anti-government crusade.