Wynehamer v. the People

The temperance movement, which sought to greatly reduce or eliminate the sale and consumption of alcohol, first emerged in the early 1800s as part of a religious evangelical revival that swept the United States. During the nineteenth century, the per capita consumption of alcohol in America continued to grow and so did the temperance movement. Maine in 1846 became the first "dry" state, and a dozen others soon followed. Difficulties in enforcement led most states to abandon their liquor laws within a quarter-century, and the temperance movement abated. The rise of political groups such as the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) signalled a resurgence of the temperance movement. The upheaval of World War I, along with a shortage of grain caused by the war, gave temperance activists an opportunity to move prohibition legislation forward.

In 1919 Congress ratified the Eighteenth Amendment, which prohibited the manufacture, sale, and consumption of alcohol in the United States. Prohibition, however, was repealed by the Twenty-first Amendment in 1933. By then, the temperance movement had ceased to be a viable force in American political life.