With dry sentiment running high, the Eighteenth Amendment was adopted by Congress on August 1917. President Woodrow Wilson supported the concept of temperance but had vetoed the amendment because he believed it was ethically unsound and constitutionally invalid. But Congress overrode the president's veto on the same day. The Eighteenth Amend ment was quickly passed by an overwhelming margin in both the Senate and House of Representatives. Since many states already had dry laws in place, ratification only took a year. This still surprised both wets and drys who thought it would take three or four years. With the amendment passed, Prohibition was set to become the law of the land in 1920.

The National Prohibition Act, more commonly known as the Volstead Act, followed on October 28, 1919. The bill, which incorporated the best features of successful state prohibition laws, specified how the federal law would...