For the admission of new member states to the European Union, see Enlargement of the European Union.
Admission to the Union is provided by the Admissions Clause of the United States Constitution in Article IV, Section 3, Clause 1, which authorizes the United States Congress to admit new states into the Union beyond the thirteen states that already existed when the Constitution came into effect. The Constitution went into effect on June 21, 1788, in the nine states that had ratified it, and the U.S. federal government began operations under it on March 4, 1789, when it was in effect in 11 out of the 13 states.[1] Since then, 37 states have been admitted into the Union. Each new state has been admitted on an equal footing with those already in existence.[2]
Of the 37 states admitted to the Union by Congress, all but six have been established within existing U.S. organized incorporated territories. A state that was so created might encompass all or part of a territory. When the people of a territory or a region have grown to a sufficient population and have made their desire for statehood known to the federal government, Congress in most cases has passed an enabling act, authorizing the people of that territory or region to frame a proposed state constitution as a step toward admission to the Union. The use of an enabling act has been a common historic practice, but several states were admitted to the Union without one.
In many instances, an enabling act would detail the mechanism by which the territory would be admitted as a state after the ratification of their constitution and the election of state officers. Although the use of such an act is a traditional historic practice, several territories have drafted constitutions for submission to Congress absent an enabling act but were subsequently admitted. The broad outline for the process was established by the Land Ordinance of 1784 and the 1787 Northwest Ordinance, both of which predate the U.S. Constitution.
The Admission to the Union Clause forbids the creation of new states from parts of existing states without the consent of all of the affected states and that of Congress. The primary intent of the caveat was to give the four Eastern States that still had western land claims (Connecticut, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia) a veto over whether their western counties could become states.[3] The clause has since served the same function each time that a proposal to partition an existing state or states has arisen.
^"March 4: A forgotten huge day in American history". Constitution Daily. Philadelphia: National Constitution Center. March 4, 2013. Archived from the original on February 24, 2018. Retrieved October 21, 2015.
^"Doctrine of the Equality of States". Justia.com. Mountain View, California. Retrieved April 5, 2016.
^Forte, David F. "Essays on Article IV: New States Clause". The Heritage Guide to the Constitution. Washington, D.C.: The Heritage Foundation. Retrieved April 5, 2016.
and 24 Related for: Admission to the Union information
The California Statehood Act, officially An Act for theAdmission of the State of California into theUnion and also known as the California Admission...
Look up admission in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Admission may refer to: "Admissions" (CSI: NY), an episode of CSI: NY Admissions (film), a 2011 short...
reference to Oklahoma's admissiontotheUnion in 1907. Developed by real estate firm Matteson Capital and architecture firm AO, Legends Tower would be the centerpiece...
linked the Maine and Missouri bills, making Maine admission a condition for Missouri entering theUnion as a slave state. Senator Jesse B. Thomas of Illinois...
present federal Union of states. Subsequent states are listed in the order of their admissiontotheUnion, and the date given is the official establishment...
effect until 1793, two years after Vermont's admissiontotheUnion. Under the Act "To Secure Freedom to All Persons Within This State," slavery was officially...
membership of the European Union (EU). Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy requested immediate admission under a "new special procedure", and the presidents...
before the first European American settlement. Tennessee was initially part of North Carolina, and later the Southwest Territory, before its admissionto the...
admissiontotheUnion in 1886. The Olympic torch relay for the 2002 Winter Olympics passed through the arch. Because of its distinctive shape, the arch...
and the Founding of Vermont, Vermont Historical Society, 2014, page 264 Forbes, Charles Spooner (March 1902). "Vermont's AdmissiontotheUnion". The Vermonter...
became the third state to ratify the United States Constitution, which granted it admissiontotheUnion, and it was the first state to ratify the U.S....
gain admissiontothe bar whereas for solicitors there are distinct practising certificates. Becoming a lawyer is a widely varied process around the world...
The largest enlargement of the European Union (EU), in terms of number of states and population, took place on 1 May 2004. The simultaneous accessions...
Vermont's admissiontotheUnion in 1791 and is largely based upon the 1777 Constitution of the Vermont Republic which was drafted at Windsor in the Old Constitution...
unincorporated territory of the United States, admission into theUnion as a state. The bill was originally introduced in the 116th Congress and was reintroduced...
the state's admissiontotheUnion, with Arthur B. Langlie serving non-consecutive terms. Populist Party candidate John Rankin Rogers is the only non-Democratic...
in theUnion, attached at once tothe State. The act which consummated her admission into theUnion was something more than a compact; it was the incorporation...
000 in 1900) when the area was a territory. Phoenix became the official state capital with Arizona's admissiontotheunion in 1912. The House of Representatives...
Southwest Territory was the first Federal territory to present itself for admissiontotheUnion, there was some uncertainty about how to proceed, and Congress...
2011. Eight cities were incorporated before the state's September 9, 1850, admissiontotheUnion. The largest municipality by population and land area...