After the Lee Resolution proposed independence for the American colonies, the Second Continental Congress appointed three committees on June 11, 1776. One of the committees was tasked with determining what form the confederation of the colonies should take. This committee was composed of one representative from each colony. John Dickinson, a delegate from Delaware, was the principal writer. Show
The Dickinson Draft of the Articles of Confederation named the confederation "the United States of America." After considerable debate and revision, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation on November 15, 1777. The document seen here is the engrossed and corrected version that was adopted on November 15. It consists of six sheets of parchment stitched together. The last sheet bears the signatures of delegates from all 13 states. This "first constitution of the United States" established a "league of friendship" for the 13 sovereign and independent states. Each state retained "every Power...which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States. The Articles of Confederation also outlined a Congress with representation not based on population – each state would have one vote in Congress. Ratification by all 13 states was necessary to set the Confederation into motion. Because of disputes over representation, voting, and the western lands claimed by some states, ratification was delayed. When Maryland ratified it on March 1, 1781, the Congress of the Confederation came into being. Just a few years after the Revolutionary War, however, James Madison and George Washington were among those who feared their young country was on the brink of collapse. With the states retaining considerable power, the central government had insufficient power to regulate commerce. It could not tax and was generally impotent in setting commercial policy. Nor could it effectively support a war effort. Congress was attempting to function with a depleted treasury; and paper money was flooding the country, creating extraordinary inflation. The states were on the brink of economic disaster; and the central government had little power to settle quarrels between states. Disputes over territory, war pensions, taxation, and trade threatened to tear the country apart. In May of 1787, the Constitutional Convention assembled in Philadelphia to revise the Articles of Confederation. They shuttered the windows of the State House (Independence Hall) and swore secrecy so they could speak freely. By mid-June the delegates had decided to completely redesign the government. After three hot, summer months of highly charged debate, the new Constitution was signed, which remains in effect today. At the end of the Civil War, this bill created a framework for Reconstruction and the re-admittance of the Confederate states to the Union. In late 1863, President Abraham Lincoln and Congress began to consider the question of how the Union would be reunited if the North won the Civil War. In December, President Lincoln proposed a reconstruction program that would allow Confederate states to establish new state governments after 10 percent of their male population took loyalty oaths and the states recognized the permanent freedom of formerly enslaved people. Several congressional Republicans thought Lincoln’s 10 percent plan was too lenient. Senator Benjamin F. Wade, of Ohio, and Representative Henry Winter Davis, of Maryland, proposed a more stringent plan in February 1864. The Wade-Davis Reconstruction Bill would also have abolished slavery, but it required that 50 percent of a state's White males take a loyalty oath to the United States (and swear they had never assisted the Confederacy) to be readmitted to the Union. Only after taking this "Ironclad Oath" would they be able to participate in conventions to write new state constitutions. Congress passed the Wade-Davis Bill, but President Lincoln chose not to sign it, killing the bill with a pocket veto. Lincoln continued to advocate tolerance and speed in plans for the reconstruction of the Union in opposition to Congress. After Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865, however, Congress had the upper hand in shaping federal policy toward the defeated South and imposed the harsher reconstruction requirements first advocated in the Wade-Davis Bill. This area is unpopulated, will be clearly mapped and will remain in place under federal jurisdiction as the District of Columbia. Only the residential and commercial areas of the District of Columbia will be part of the new 51st
State. Of course, these areas include some federal properties that will continue to function just as all federal properties do in the 50 states. Who has the power to admit new states to the United States?New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the ...
What is Article 4 Section 3 of the Constitution?Section 3.
The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any particular state.
Which is the national government obligated to do for the states?The Guarantee Clause requires the United States to guarantee to the states a republican form of government, and provide protection from foreign invasion and domestic violence.
What are the usual steps required to admit a new state to the United States of America?Typically, a territory sends representatives and two senators to push for statehood. Congress has the power to admit a new state, but the president has to sign the territory into statehood to make it official.
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