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The following table is a list of all 50 states and their respective dates of statehood. The first 13 became states in July 1776 upon agreeing to the United States Declaration of Independence, and each joined the first Union of states between 1777 and 1781, upon ratifying the Articles of Confederation, its first constitution. [6]
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 ...
The clause has served the same function since then whenever a proposal to partition an existing state or states has come before Congress. New breakaway states are permitted to join the Union only with the proper consents. [4] Of the 37 states admitted to the Union by Congress, three were set off from an already existing state:
In addition to the original 13, six subsequent states were never an organized territory of the federal government, or part of one, before being admitted to the Union. Three were set off from an already existing state, two entered the Union after having been sovereign states, and one was established from unorganized territory:
The Admission Act, formally An Act to Provide for the Admission of the State of Hawaii into the Union (Pub. L. 86–3, 73 Stat. 4, enacted March 18, 1959) is a statute enacted by the United States Congress and signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower which dissolved the Territory of Hawaii and established the State of Hawaii as the 50th state to be admitted into the Union. [1]
A new border state was created during the war, West Virginia, which was formed from 50 counties of Virginia and became a new slave state in the Union in 1863 (with, initially, gradual abolition law). [2] [3] [4] Lincoln's 1863 Emancipation Proclamation did not apply to the border states, because they were not in rebellion.
The term "51st state" in American political discourse refers to the idea of adding a new state to the Union, either by granting statehood to one of the U.S. territories, splitting an existing state, admitting another country, or granting statehood to the District of Columbia (D.C.).
By 1845, with Texas and Florida in the Union as slave states, slave states once again outnumbered the free states for a year until Iowa was admitted as a free state in 1846. The potential for political conflict over slavery at the federal level made politicians concerned about the balance of power in the Senate , where each state was ...