the government, has made this condition very unsatisfactory. Laws have been passed by Congress bringing this Territory into closer governmental agreement with the other lands controlled by Congress. An effort was made by the Curtis Law of 1898, to transfer the control of property from the tribes to the United States. By this law the President was given a veto over the acts of the tribal governments. It is only a question of time, although it may be a long time, before the lands will be assigned in severalty, and the Territory become organized like its neighbors New Mexico and Arizona, and then will be a demand for statehood, because its white population in 1900 was already more than three hundred thousand, and increasing with great rapidity.

With Oklahoma and Indian Territory we properly close our review of the process by which the Louisiana Purchase has, piece by piece, been amalgamated into the body politic of the United States. True, Oklahoma is not yet one of the States, and the future of Indian Territory is still on the knees of the gods; but before the close of the present decade it is probable that the last remnant of the vast territory ceded by France in the days of Napoleon will have gained statehood, either of itself or because of union with an existing State.

CHAPTER XXI

THE AMERICAN SYSTEM OF ADMITTING NEW STATES INTO THE UNION

A TERRITORIAL form of government is merely temporary; a State government takes its place as soon as circumstances make the change desirable. A request is generally presented to Congress by the delegate representing the Territory and this is referred to the Committee on Territories. If this reports favorably, an Enabling Act is introduced and passed. Delegates are elected to a convention in the Territory and this convention forms a constitution. This may be submitted to the people, and if it is accepted by them and found by Congress to fulfil the conditions of the Enabling Act, the State is admitted into the Union. This is the general and what might be called the normal course of action. There have been departures from it in almost every particular of its course in the admission of the different States.

The first State to unite with the original thirteen was Vermont. This had been practically an independent republic since 1777. On the 18th of February, 1791, an act was passed by Congress providing that on the fourth day of March, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-one, the said State, by the name and style of "the State of Vermont, shall be received and admitted into the Union, as a new and entire member of the United States of America."

Kentucky was under consideration at the same time for admission as a State of the Union. The District of Kentucky was a part of Virginia. The legislature of Virginia passed an act entitled: "An Act concerning the erection

of the District of Kentucky into an independent State," on December 18, 1789, by which consent was given to the erection of Kentucky into a separate State. A convention of delegates from the District of Kentucky petitioned Congress for admission into the Union as a new State under the title of the "State of Kentucky;" therefore that body enacted on the 4th of February, 1791, "That the Congress doth consent that the said District of Kentucky, within the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and according to its actual boundaries, on the eighteenth day of December, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-two, be formed into a new State, separate from, and independent of, the Commonwealth of Virginia." "And be it further enacted and declared, That upon the aforesaid first day of June, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-two, the said new State, by the name and style of the State of Kentucky, shall be received and admitted into this Union as a new and entire member of the United States of America."

The third State to be admitted was Tennessee. This State was formed from the lands granted to the United States by the State of North Carolina on condition that one or more States should be made from this territory. The act for its admission contained some statements more definite than the earlier ones. The entire Territory was to form one State, and "the same is hereby declared to be one of the United States of America, on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever, by the name and title of the State of Tennessee." It was to have one representative in the House of Representatives until the next census, and United States laws were to have the same force in that State as in the original thirteen States.

Congress was confronted by different conditions when an application for admission came from Ohio. Hitherto the States had been formed from land which had belonged to individual States, and they were regarded as belated members of the original group. With Ohio, Congress entered upon a definite policy in its admission of States which came

into existence from territory owned and governed by the Union as a whole. As a preliminary to the admission, Congress passed an act to enable the people in the eastern division of the Northwest Territory to form a constitution and State government, and for the admission of such State into the Union on an equal footing with the original States. This is worth particular attention because it is the model which all other Enabling Acts follow.

Enabling Act for Ohio-1802. (Seventh Congress, First Session.) An Act to enable the people of the eastern division of the Territory northwest of the river Ohio to form a constitution and State government, and for the admission of such State into the Union on an equal footing with the original States, and for other purposes.

Section 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the inhabitants of the eastern division of the territory northwest of the river Ohio be, and they are hereby authorized to form for themselves a constitution and State government, and to assume such name as they shall deem proper, and the said State when formed, shall be admitted into the Union upon the same footing with the original States in all respects whatever.

Section 2. [Gives boundaries only.]

Section 3. And be it further enacted, That all that part of the territory of the United States northwest of the river Ohio, heretofore included in the eastern division of said territory and not included within the boundary herein prescribed for the said State, is hereby attached to and made a part of the Indiana Territory from and after the formation of the said State, subject, nevertheless, to be hereafter disposed of by Congress according to the right reserved in the fifth article of the ordinance aforesaid, and the inhabitants therein shall be entitled to the same immunities and privileges, and subject to the same rules and regulations in all respects whatever, with all other citizens residing within the Indiana Territory.