27, 1918 Michigan: January 2, 1919 Ohio: January 7, 1919 Oklahoma: January 7, 1919 Idaho: January 8, 1919 Maine: January 8, 1919 West Virginia: January 9, 1919 California: January 13, 1919 Tennessee: January 13, 1919 Washington: January 13, 1919 Arkansas: January 14, 1919 Illinois: January 14, 1919 Indiana: January 14, 1919 Kansas: January 14, 1919 Alabama: January 15, 1919 Colorado: January 15, 1919 Iowa: January 15, 1919 New Hampshire: January 15, 1919 Oregon: January 15, 1919 North Carolina: January 16, 1919 Utah: January 16, 1919 Nebraska: January 16, 1919 Missouri: January 16, 1919 Wyoming: January 16, 1919 Minnesota: January 17, 1919 Wisconsin: January 17, 1919 New Mexico: January 20, 1919 Nevada: January 21, 1919 New York: January 29, 1919 Vermont: January 29, 1919 Pennsylvania: February 25, 1919 New Jersey: March 9, 1922 Two states rejected the amendment: Connecticut Rhode Island To define the language used in the amendment, Congress enacted enabling legislation called the National Prohibition Act, better known as the Volstead Act, on October 28, 1919. President Woodrow Wilson vetoed that bill, but the House of Representatives immediately voted to override the veto and the Senate followed suit the next day. The Volstead Act set the starting date for nationwide prohibition as January 17, 1920, the earliest date allowed by the Eighteenth Amendment. The Volstead Act This legislation that would become the National Prohibition Act was conceived and introduced by Wayne Wheeler, a leader of the Anti-Saloon League, a group that found alcohol responsible for almost all of society's problems and that also ran many campaigns against the sale of alcohol. The law was strongly supported by the powerful Minnesota Republican congressman Andrew Volstead, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, whose name came to be informally associated with the act. The act laid the groundwork for Prohibition, defining the procedures for banning the distribution of alcohol, including production and distribution. Volstead had previously introduced an early version of the law to Congress. It was first brought to the floor on May 27, 1919 but met heavy resistance from Democratic senators. Instead, the so-called "wet law" was introduced, an attempt to end the wartime prohibition laws put into effect much earlier. The debate over prohibition persisted for that entire session, as the House was divided among groups who become known as the "bone-drys" and the "wets." The Volstead Act finally passed the Republican-led House of Representatives on July 22, 1919,