Admission to the Union

Article IV, Section 3, Clause 1: ==Background==

Articles of Confederation Between 1781 and 1789, the United States was governed by a unicameral Congress, the Congress of the Confederation, which operated under authority granted to it by the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution. The 11th Article authorized Congress to admit new states to the Union provided nine states consented. Under the Articles, each state cast one vote on each proposed measure in Congress. During this period, the Confederation Congress enacted two ordinances governing the admission of new states into the Union. The first such ordinance was the Land Ordinance of 1784, enacted April 23, 1784. Thomas Jefferson was its principal author. The ordinance called for the land (recently confirmed as part of the United States by the Treaty of Paris) west of the Appalachian Mountains, north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River to eventually be divided into ten states. Once a given area reached 20,000 inhabitants, it could call a constitutional convention and form a provisional government. Then, upon enacting a state constitution which affirmed that the new state would forever be part of the Confederation, it would be admitted on an equal footing with all other states, based on a majority vote in Congress. The 1784 ordinance was superseded three years later by the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. Enacted by the Confederation Congress on July 13, 1787, it created the Northwest Territory, the first organized incorporated territory of the United States. The Northwest Ordinance (Article V) provided for the admission of several new states from within its bounds: While the Articles of Confederation were in effect, the Congress considered various ordinances admitting particular new states into the Union, none of which were approved: • On August 20, 1781, Congress passed a resolution stating conditions under which the Vermont Republic (at the time a de facto but unrecognized sovereign state) could enter the Union. It needed only to give up its claims to territory west of Lake Champlain and east of the Connecticut River. In February 1782, the legislature of Vermont agreed to those terms. However, Vermont's admission was opposed by New York, which asserted a disputed claim to the region and consequently successfully resisted the proposed admission. • On May 16, 1785, a resolution to admit Frankland (later modified to Franklin) to the Union was introduced in Congress. Eventually, seven states voted to admit what would have been the 14th state. This was, however, fewer than the nine states required by the Articles of Confederation. The proposed state was located in what is today East Tennessee and within the territory west of the Appalachian Mountains that had been offered by North Carolina as a cession to Congress to help pay off debts related to the Revolutionary War. It continued to exist as an extra-legal state through mid-1788, when North Carolina reassumed full sovereignty over the area. In 1790, when North Carolina again ceded the region, the area that comprised Franklin became part of the Southwest Territory, the precursor to the state of Tennessee. • In July 1788, Congress began deliberations on whether to admit Kentucky to the Union. Kentucky was then a part of Virginia. The legislature of Virginia had consented to the creation of the new state from its western district. However, when Congress began to discuss the matter, they received notification that New Hampshire had ratified the Constitution, becoming the ninth state to do so, causing it to go into effect in the ratifying states. Congress instead passed a resolution stating that it was "unadvisable" to admit a new state under those circumstances and the matter should wait until the federal government under the Constitution came into existence. Considered one of the most important legislative acts of the Confederation Congress, the Northwest Ordinance established the precedent by which the Federal government would be sovereign and expand westward with the admission of new states, rather than with the expansion of existing states and their established sovereignty under the Articles of Confederation. No new states were formed in the Northwest Territory under either ordinance. In 1789, the 1st United States Congress reaffirmed the Northwest Ordinance with slight modifications. The Northwest Territory remained in existence until 1803, when the southeastern portion of it was admitted to the Union as the State of Ohio, and the remainder was reorganized. 1787 Constitutional Convention At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, a proposal to include the phrase "new States shall be admitted on the same terms with the original States" in the new states clause was defeated. That proposal would have taken the policy articulated in the Ordinance of 1784 and made it a constitutional imperative. Many delegates objected to including the phrase, fearing that the political power of future new western states would ultimately overwhelm that of the established eastern states. Delegates, understanding that the number of states would inevitably increase, did agree to include wording into this clause to preclude formation of a new state out of an established one without the consent of the established state as well as the Congress. ==Equal footing doctrine==

Shortly after the new Constitution went into effect Congress admitted Vermont and Kentucky on equal terms with the existing 13 states and thereafter formalized the condition in its acts of admission for subsequent states. Thus the Congress, utilizing the discretion allowed by the framers, adopted a policy of equal status for all newly admitted states. The constitutional principle derived from these actions is known as the equal footing doctrine. With the growth of states' rights advocacy during the antebellum period, the Supreme Court asserted, in Lessee of Pollard v. Hagan (1845), that the Constitution mandated admission of new states on the basis of equality. ==Admission process==

report examines the legal processes for admission to the Union. Historically, most new states formed by Congress have been established from an organized incorporated U.S. territory, created and governed by Congress in accord with its plenary power under Article IV, Section 3, Clause 2 of the Constitution. In some cases, an entire territory became a state; in others some part of a territory became a state. In most cases, the organized government of a territory made known the sentiment of its population in favor of statehood, usually by referendum. Congress then empowered that government to organize a constitutional convention to write a state constitution. Upon acceptance of that constitution, by the people of the territory and then by Congress, Congress would adopt by simple majority vote a joint resolution granting statehood. Then the President of the United States would sign the resolution and issue a proclamation announcing that a new state had been added to the Union. While Congress, which has ultimate authority over the admission of new states, has usually followed this procedure, there have been occasions when it did not. Congress is under no obligation to admit states, even in those areas whose population expresses a desire for statehood. In one instance, Mormon pioneers in Salt Lake City sought to establish the state of Deseret in 1849. It existed for slightly over two years and was never approved by the Congress. In 1905, leaders of the Five Civilized Tribes (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole) in Indian Territory proposed to establish the state of Sequoyah as a means to retain control of their lands. The proposed constitution ultimately failed in Congress. Instead, the Indian Territory was incorporated into the new state of Oklahoma in 1907. Some U.S. territories existed only a short time before becoming states, while others remained territories for decades. The shortest-lived was Alabama Territory at 2 years, while New Mexico and Hawaii territories both were in existence for more than 50 years. The entry of several states into the Union has been delayed by complicating factors. Among them, Michigan Territory, which petitioned Congress for statehood in 1835, was not admitted to the Union until 1837, because of a boundary dispute with the adjacent state of Ohio. The independent Republic of Texas requested annexation to the United States in 1837, but fears about potential conflict with Mexico delayed the admission of Texas for nine years. Also, statehood for Kansas Territory was held up for several years (1854–1861) because of a series of internal violent conflicts involving anti-slavery and pro-slavery factions. Once established, most state borders have, with few exceptions, been generally stable. Notable exceptions include: the various portions (the Western land claims) of several original states ceded over a period of several years to the federal government, which in turn became the Northwest Territory, Southwest Territory, and Mississippi Territory; the 1791 cession by Maryland and Virginia of land to create the District of Columbia (Virginia's portion was returned in 1847); and the creation, on at least three occasions, of a new state (Kentucky, Maine and West Virginia) from a region of an existing state (Vermont was created from what was disputedly claimed to be a part of New York and was not admitted until New York consented); two large additions to Nevada, which became a state in 1864, were made in 1866 and 1867. There have been numerous minor adjustments to state boundaries over the years as a result of improved surveys, resolution of ambiguous or disputed boundary definitions, or minor mutually agreed boundary adjustments for administrative convenience or other purposes. One notable example is the case New Jersey v. New York, in which New Jersey won roughly 90% of Ellis Island from New York in 1998. ==States that were never part of an organized U.S. territory==

In addition to the original 13, six subsequent states were never part of an organized incorporated U.S. territory: • Vermont, admitted March 4, 1791, was formed from the territory of the Vermont Republic (earlier known as the New Hampshire Grants). This territory was also claimed by New York. The resulting dispute led to the rise of the Green Mountain Boys and the later establishment of the Vermont Republic. New Hampshire's claim upon the land was extinguished in 1764 by royal order of George III, and on March 6, 1790, the state of New York ceded its claim to Vermont for 30,000 Spanish dollars. • Kentucky, admitted June 1, 1792, was set off from Virginia (previously its western District of Kentucky counties). The Virginia General Assembly adopted legislation on December 18, 1789, separating its "District of Kentucky" from the rest of the state and approving its statehood. • Maine, admitted March 15, 1820, was set off from Massachusetts (previously the District of Maine, its northern exclave). The Massachusetts General Court passed enabling legislation on June 19, 1819, consenting to the separation of the District of Maine from the rest of the state (an action approved by the voters in Maine on July 19, 1819); then, on February 25, 1820, passed a follow-up measure officially accepting the fact of Maine's imminent statehood. • Texas, admitted December 29, 1845, was formed from the territory of the Republic of Texas following the republic's annexation into the United States earlier in 1845. • California, admitted September 9, 1850, was formed from unorganized territory ceded to the United States by Mexico in the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo at the end of the Mexican–American War. The Act of Congress establishing California as the 31st state was part of the Compromise of 1850. • West Virginia, admitted June 20, 1863, during the Civil War, was set off from Virginia (previously its northwestern trans-Allegheny region). The General Assembly of the Restored Government of Virginia passed an act on May 13, 1862, granting permission for the creation of West Virginia. Later, by its ruling in Virginia v. West Virginia (1871), the Supreme Court implicitly affirmed that the breakaway Virginia counties did have the proper consents required to become a separate state. ==See also==