That is a far more well thought out argument than mine. > But to maintain the status quo in perpetuity, locking in Temperance Movement reforms without defector

That is a far more well thought out argument than mine. > But to maintain the status quo in perpetuity, locking in Temperance Movement reforms without defectors slowly eating them away, a national law was desirable. But overall yes — this what what I was referring to. Even if I wasn’t clear on the state vs federal level, the overall argument that I’ve seen is that the proponents of prohibition wanted to increase the difficulty of rolling back prohibition. And if alcohol was banned through legislation, it would just take a single election (state or federal, depending on the law) to change things back.