Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution late 1920s, the Great Depression only hastened its demise, as some argued that the ban on alcohol denied jobs to the unemployed and much-needed revenue to the government. The efforts of the nonpartisan group Americans Against Prohibition Association (AAPA) added to public disillusionment. In 1932, the platform of Democratic presidential candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt included a plank for repealing the 18th Amendment, and his victory that November marked a certain end to Prohibition. In February 1933, Congress adopted a resolution proposing the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed the 18th Amendment and modified the Volstead Act to permit the sale of beer.
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