During the 1920s to the mid 1930s the National Prohibition Enforcement Act forbade the manufacture of alcohol beverages with alcohol content greater then 0.5%. Americans believed that alcohol intoxication of individuals had slowly been getting out of hand, resulting in family violence and abuse, poverty, crime, and incompetence. Speakeasies were illegal nightclubs fro drinking. The "Maine Law" of 1851 prohibited the manufacture and sales of intoxicating liquor.
Temperance was social movement when a large number of people took upon themselves as individual discipline to abstain from hard liquor, wine and beer. They did this to stay healthy and retain family morals. In the 1840's a businessman name Neal Dow became astonished of the family violence, crime, disorder and poverty in his hometown, which he attributed to "excessive use of alcohol". He first tried to persuade the town's people to become temperate on their own. When he failed to persuade the people in his hometown, he knew the only option was to take away the peoples freedom of choice and have the state prohibit the sale of alcohol.
Joint Resolution Proposing the Twenty-first Amendm...
Prescription form for medicinal liquor
English: A lithograph by Nathaniel Currier support...His attempt to prohibit the sale of alcohol was successful and in 1851 it therefore became the first law of this sort. Thirteen of the thirty-one states had these laws.
Later in the 1900s direct laws opened selection of political candidates to the anti-saloon league of America. Prohibition became a political movement when the voters demanded the government provided what the churches could not in moral values. At that point democrat or republicans that were safely dry were supported by the A.S.L. (anti salon league) leaders, which was a large percent of voters. Soon twenty-one states had banned saloons. After congress submitted a nation wide amendment to the constitution to ban the manufacture sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors. It was...