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. 20.
That the sum of twenty thousand dollars, or so much thereof as may be necessary, is hereby appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, to each of said Territories for defraying the expenses of the said conventions, except to Dakota, for which the sum of forty thousand dollars is so appropriated, twenty thousand dollars each for South Dakota and North Dakota, and for the payment of the members thereof, under the same rules and regulations and at the same rates as are now provided by law for the payment of the Territorial legislatures. Any money hereby appropriated not necessary for such purpose shall be covered into the Treasury of the United States.