thumb|right| [[Neal Dow (1804 – 1897), mayor of Portland, Maine, was known as the Napoleon of Temperance]]

The Maine Law (or "Maine Liquor Law"), passed on June 2, 1851 in Maine, was the first statutory implementation of the developing temperance movement in the United States.

History

Temperance activist Neal Dow helped craft the Maine liquor law while he was mayor of Portland, Maine. The law's wording included that the sale of all alcoholic beverages except for "medicinal, mechanical or manufacturing purposes" was prohibited. Word of the law's passage quickly spread elsewhere in the nation, and by 1855 twelve states had joined Maine in total prohibition. Known as "dry" states, these states were the opposite of "wet" states, where no prohibition laws existed.

The act was unpopular with many working-class people and immigrants. Opposition to the law turned violent in Portland on June 2, 1855, during an incident known as the Portland Rum Riot. Opponents of the Maine Law stormed Portland City Hall because they thought Mayor Dow was keeping liquor in the basement. A 16.5 acre brickworks on the street was later redeveloped into Maine Road football stadium, where Manchester City F.C. played home games between 1923 and 2003.

Other states

  • "The Choctaw council, immediately after the tribe's migration, had enacted a law to prohibit the introduction of whisky which they claimed antedated the Maine law on the subject." (Grant Foreman, The Five Civilized Tribes, p78) The date must be in the early 1830s, to judge from a citation given by Foreman later in that chapter, to the New York Evangelist as copied in the Indian Advocate in October, 1852.
  • In 1847 Delaware became the second state to pass an unenforced prohibitory liquor law by the legislature, but the people in Kent and Sussex Counties voted against it. Delaware's third county, New Castle, was the only to vote for it.
  • The Massachusetts legislature passed a "Maine Law" in 1852 which was struck down a year later by that state's Supreme Court. Two years later, in 1855, the legislature passed a revised prohibitory liquor law to avoid the constitutional flaws of the first law.
  • Vermont's legislature also passed a prohibitory liquor law in 1852 which was ratified by the people of the state the year after.