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. 24.
That the constitutional conventions may, by ordinance, provide for the election of officers for full State governments, including members of the legislatures and Representatives in the fifty-first Congress; but said State governments shall remain in abeyance until the States shall be admitted into the Union, respectively, as provided in this act. In case the constitution of any of said proposed States shall be ratified by the people, but not otherwise, the legislature thereof may assemble, organize, and elect two senators of the United States; and the governor and secretary of state of such proposed State shall certify the election of the Senators and Representatives in the manner required by law; and when such State is admitted into the Union, the Senators and Representatives shall be entitled to be admitted to seats in Congress, and to all the rights and privileges of Senators and Representatives of other States in the Congress of the United States; and the officers of the State governments formed in pursuance of said constitutions, as provided by the constitutional conventions, shall proceed to exercise all the functions of such State officers; and all laws in force made by said Territories, at the time of their admission into the Union, shall be in force in said States, except as modified or changed by this act or by the constitutions of the States, respectively.