Prohibition in the United States December 18, 1918. Upon being approved by a 36th state on January 16, 1919, the amendment was ratified as a part of the Constitution. By the terms of the amendment, the country went dry one year later, on January 17, 1920. On October 28, 1919, Congress passed the Volstead Act, the popular name for the National Prohibition Act, over President Woodrow Wilson's veto. The act established the legal definition of intoxicating liquors as well as penalties for producing them. Although the Volstead Act prohibited the sale of alcohol, the federal government lacked resources to enforce it. Prohibition was successful in
Second Amendment to the United States Constitution therefore, suppress it without the interposition of Congress ... Congress, and Congress only [under the Constitution without a Second Amendment], can call forth the militia." Legal historian Paul Finkelman disputes Hartmann's claim that the Second Amendment was adopted to protect slave patrols, arguing that Hartmann's claim is "factually incorrect and misleading" and that there is no historical evidence for this assertion. James Madison's initial proposal for a bill of rights was brought to the floor of the House of Representatives on June 8, 1789, during the first session of Congress. The initial proposed passage relating to arms was: On July