Admission of States to Union

The state-making process in the United States is regulated by Article IV, Section 3 of the United States Constitution. It allows for the admission of new states by an act of Congress. Generally speaking, states could not be formed by subdividing existing states without the consent of both concerned legislatures, but West Virginia was accepted into the Union during the Civil War by seceding from Virginia, after Virginia has itself seceded from the Union.

All states are admitted to the Union on an equal footing. This is not a provision of the Constitution itself, but U.S. Supreme Court rulings have established that Congress cannot discriminate against states when they are admitted.

Vermont could be considered on the same footing as the original thirteen colonies, since Vermont has been independent since 1777 and operated under its own constitution before applying to the United States for admission, which was granted in 1791. Other early states like Kentucky, Tennessee, and Maine were taken out of land originally considered to be part of one of the original thirteen.

Following the Louisiana Purchase, Louisiana was proposed for admission as a state. Josiah Quincy, a leader of the Federalist Party in the House of Representatives, denounced the bill, using the theory that the original constitution allocated powers to the original states, which the addition of new states would unreasonably dilute. He went so far as to suggest that the New England states would be within their rights to secede if more western states were admitted. His objections found little support outside of Massachusetts.

With the acquisition of new territories by treaty, combined with war, the United States extended its dominion to the Pacific Ocean. These new lands were gradually incorporated into the Union until Arizona in 1912 completed the union of the contiguous 48 states. Almost 50 years later, Alaska and Hawaii were added. There has been some consideration of admitting Puerto Rico to the union, but this presently seems unlikely

During the years leading up to the Civil War, the question of slavery in territories became a major concern. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 created the precedent that states would be admitted in pairs, one slave and one free, which held until the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.

The issue of secession from the Union is not addressed directly in the constitution. The fundamental constitutional issue of the Civil War was the contention by Southern states that the Union was voluntary and revokable, while Lincoln and the North asserted that once in, there was no way out.

Rank	State	Admission Date
1	Delaware	December 7, 1787
2	Pennsylvania	December 12, 1787
3	New Jersey	December 18, 1787
4	Georgia	January 2, 1788
5	Connecticut	January 9, 1788
6	Massachusetts	February 6, 1788
7	Maryland	April 28, 1788
8	South Carolina	May 23, 1788
9	New Hampshire	June 21, 1788
10	Virginia	June 25, 1788
11	New York	July 26, 1788
12	North Carolina	November 21, 1789
13	Rhode Island	May 29, 1790
14	Vermont	March 4, 1791
15	Kentucky	June 1, 1792
16	Tennessee	June 1, 1796
17	Ohio	March 1, 1803
18	Louisiana	April 30, 1812
19	Indiana	December 11, 1816
20<	Mississippi	December 10, 1817
21	Illinois	December 3, 1818
22	Alabama	December 14, 1819
23	Maine	March 15, 1820
24	Missouri	August 10, 1821
25	Arkansas	June 15, 1836
26	Michigan	Jan 26, 1837
27	Florida	March 3, 1845
28	Texas	December 29, 1845
29	Iowa	December 28, 1846
30	Wisconsin	May 29, 1848
31	California	September 9, 1850
32	Minnesota	May 11, 1858
33	Oregon	February 14, 1859
34	Kansas	January 29, 1861
35	West Virginia	June 20, 1863
36	Nevada	October 31, 1864
37	Nebraska	March 1, 1867
38	Colorado	August 1, 1876
39	North Dakota	November 2, 1889
40	South Dakota	November 2, 1889
41	Montana	November 8, 1889
42	Washington	November 11, 1889
43	Idaho	July 3, 1890
44	Wyoming	July 10, 1890
45	Utah	January 4, 1896
46	Oklahoma	November 16, 1907
47	New Mexico	January 6, 1912
48	Arizona	February 14, 1912
49	Alaska	January 3, 1959
50	Hawaii	August 21, 1959

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