Prohibition uses. Alcohol consumption was never illegal under federal law. Nationwide Prohibition did not begin in the United States until January 1920, when the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution went into effect. The 18th amendment was ratified in 1919, and was repealed in December 1933 with the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment. Concern over excessive alcohol consumption began during the American colonial era, when fines were imposed for drunken behavior and for selling liquor without a license. In the eighteenth century, when drinking was a part of everyday American life, Protestant religious groups, especially the Methodists, and health reformers, including
Prohibition first state to ratify the amendment; the thirty-sixth state to do so, Nebraska, ratified it on January 16, 1919, assuring its passage into law. On October 28, 1919, Congress passed the National Prohibition Act, also known as the Volstead Act, which provided enabling legislation to implement the Eighteenth Amendment. When the National Prohibition Act was passed on October 28, 1919, thirty-three of the forty-eight states were already dry. Congress ratified the Eighteenth Amendment on January 16, 1920; nationwide prohibition began the next day. During the first years of Prohibition, the new law was enforced in regions such as the rural