Prohibition: Congress voting share on 18th Amendment in the USA 1917
Alcohol and US politics
Although the sale and consumption of alcohol had been a contentious issue throughout US history, the prohibition movement did not gain notable momentum and political influence (including the formation of a political party) until the nineteenth century. The movement itself was spearheaded by the conservative WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) elite, who believed that alcohol was having an immoral and corrupting influence on American society and politics. They also believed that, at local levels, politicians were undermining the structure and status quo of US society, by frequenting bars and saloons that were popular with migrants, in order to buy their support. This practice had become a US tradition; for two centuries, politicians had been providing alcohol at polling stations on election days in order to maximize voter turnout. One famous example of this was when George Washington spent his entire 1758 election budget of fifty pounds on liquor, which he distributed for free to 391 voters (Washington won with 310 out of 794 votes).