Enabling Act
Read the federal law that allowed Washington to become a state.
Preface
AN ACT to provide for the division of Dakota into two States and to enable the people of North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Washington to form constitutions and State governments and to be admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original States, and to make donations of public lands to such States.
(Approved February 22, 1889.) [25 U.S. Statutes at Large, c 180 p 676.]
[President's proclamation declaring Washington a state: 26 St. at Large, Proclamations, p 1552, Nov. 11, 1889.]
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the inhabitants of all that part of the area of the United States now constituting the Territories of Dakota, Montana, and Washington, as at present described, may become the States of North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Washington, respectively, as hereinafter provided.
SEC. 17.
That in lieu of the grant of land for purposes of internal improvement made to new States by the eighth section of the act of September fourth, eighteen hundred and forty-one, which act is hereby repealed as to the States provided for by this act, and in lieu of any claim or demand by the said States, or either of them, under the act of September twenty-eighth, eighteen hundred and fifty, and section twenty-four hundred and seventy-nine of the Revised Statutes, making a grant of swamp and overflowed lands to certain States, which grant it is hereby declared is not extended to the States provided for in this act, and in lieu of any grant of saline lands to said States, the following grants of land are hereby made, to wit:
To the State of South Dakota: For the school of mines, forty thousand acres; for the reform school, forty thousand acres; for the deaf and dumb asylum, forty thousand acres; for the agricultural college, forty thousand acres; for the university, forty thousand acres; for State normal schools, eighty thousand acres; for public buildings at the capital of said State, fifty thousand acres, and for such other educational and charitable purposes as the legislature of said State may determine, one hundred and seventy thousand acres; in all five hundred thousand acres.
To the State of North Dakota a like quantity of land as in this section granted to the State of South Dakota, and to be for like purposes, and in like proportion as far as practicable.
To the State of Montana: For the establishment and maintenance of a school of mines, one hundred thousand acres; for State normal schools, one hundred thousand acres; for agricultural colleges, in addition to the grant hereinbefore made for that purpose, fifty thousand acres; for the establishment of a State reform school, fifty thousand acres; for the establishment of a deaf and dumb asylum, fifty thousand acres; for public buildings at the capital of the State, in addition to the grant hereinbefore made for that purpose, one hundred and fifty thousand acres.
To the State of Washington: For the establishment and maintenance of a scientific school, one hundred thousand acres; for State normal schools, one hundred thousand acres; for public buildings at the State capital, in addition to the grant hereinbefore made for that purpose, one hundred thousand acres; for State charitable, educational, penal, and reformatory institutions, two hundred thousand acres.
That the States provided for in this act shall not be entitled to any further or other grants of land for any purpose than as expressly provided in this act. And the lands granted by this section shall be held, appropriated, and disposed of exclusively for the purposes herein mentioned, in such manner as the legislatures of the respective States may severally provide.