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. 6.
It shall be the duty of the constitutional conventions of North Dakota and South Dakota to appoint a joint commission, to be composed of not less than three members of each convention, whose duty it shall be to assemble at Bismarck, the present seat of government of said Territory, and agree upon an equitable division of all property belonging to the Territory of Dakota, the disposition of all public records, and also adjust and agree upon the amount of the debts and liabilities of the Territory, which shall be assumed and paid by each of the proposed States of North Dakota and South Dakota; and the agreement reached respecting the Territorial debts and liabilities shall be incorporated in the respective constitutions, and each of said States shall obligate itself to pay its proportion of such debts and liabilities the same as if they had been created by such States respectively.