Conditions for Admission

Coyle v. Smith, 221 U.S. 559 (1911):

"As to requirements in such enabling acts as relate only to the contents of the Constitution for the proposed new state, little need to be said. The constitutional provision concerning the admission of new states is not a mandate, but a power to be exercised with discretion. From this alone it would follow that Congress may require, under penalty of denying admission, that the organic law of a new state at the time of admission shall be such as to meet its approval. A Constitution thus supervised by Congress would, after all, be a Constitution of a state, and as such subject to alteration and amendment by the state after admission. Its force would be that of a state Constitution, and not that of an act of Congress."

As stated by Justice Catron in Permoli v. Municipality No. 1 of City of New Orleans, 44 U.S. 589 (1845):

[Re the following acts of Congress]"...That of February 20, 1811, authorized the people of the territory of Orleans to form a constitution and state government; by sect. 3, certain restrictions were imposed in the form of instructions to the convention that might frame the constitution; such as that it should be republican; consistent with the Constitution of the United States; that it should contain the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty; that it should secure the right of trial by jury in criminal cases, and the writ of habeas corpus; that the laws of the state should be published, and legislative and judicial proceedings be written and recorded in the language of the Constitution of the United States. Then follows by a second proviso, a stipulation reserving to the United States the property in the public lands, and their exemption from state taxation-with a declaration that the navigation of the Mississippi and its waters shall be common highways, etc. By the act of April 8, 1812, Louisiana was admitted according to the mode prescribed by the act of 1811; Congress declared it should be on the conditions and terms contained in the 3d section of that act; which should be considered, deemed and taken, as fundamental conditions and terms upon which the state was incorporated in the union. All Congress intended, was to declare in advance, to the people of the territory, the fundamental principles their constitution should contain; this was every way proper under the circumstances: the instrument having been duly formed, and presented, it was for the national legislature to judge whether it contained the proper principles, and to accept it if it did or reject it if it did not. Having accepted the constitution and admitted the state, 'on an equal footing with the original states in all respects whatever,' in express terms, by the act of 1812, Congress was concluded from assuming that the instructions contained in the act of 1811 had not been complied with. No fundamental principles could be added by way of amendment, as this would have been making part of the state constitution; if Congress could make it in part, it might, in the form of amendment, make it entire...."

"The act of 1805, chap. 83, having provided, that from and after the establishment of the government of the Orleans territory, the inhabitants of the same should be entitled to enjoy all the rights, privileges, and advantages secured by said ordinance, and then enjoyed by the people of the Mississippi territory. It was also made the frame of government, with modifications.

"In the ordinance, there are terms of compact declared to be thereby established, between the original states, and the people in the states afterwards to be formed north-west of the Ohio, unalterable, unless by common consent-one of which stipulations is, that 'no person demeaning himself in a peaceable manner, shall ever be molested on account of his mode of worship, or religious sentiments, in the said territory.' For this provision is claimed the sanction of an unalterable law of Congress; and it is insisted the city ordinances above have violated it; and what the force of the ordinance is north of the Ohio, we do not pretend to say, as it is unnecessary for the purposes of this case. But as regards the state of Louisiana, it had no further force, after the adoption of the state constitution, than other acts of Congress organizing, in part, the territorial government of Orleans, and standing in connection with the ordinance of 1787. So far as they conferred political rights, and secured civil and religious liberties, (which are political rights,) the laws of Congress were all superseded by the state constitution; nor is any part of them in force, unless they were adopted by the constitution of Louisiana, as laws of the state. It is not possible to maintain that the United States hold in trust, by force of the ordinance, for the people of Louisiana, all the great elemental principles, or any one of them, contained in the ordinance, and secured to the people of the Orleans territory, during its existence. It follows, no repugnance could arise between the ordinance of 1787 and an act of the legislature of Louisiana, or a city regulation founded on such act; and therefore this court has no jurisdiction on the last ground assumed, more than on the preceding ones..."

 As stated by Justice Field in Escanaba & Lake Michigan Transp. Co. v. City of Chicago, 107 U.S. 678 (1883):

"...although the act of April 18, 1818, enabling the people of Illinois territory to form a constitution and state government, and the act of August 26th, following, admitting the state into the Union, refer to the principles of the [Northwest] ordinance according to which the constitution was to be formed,-its provisions could not control the authority and powers of the state after her admission. Whatever the limitation upon her powers as a government while in a territorial condition, whether from the ordinance of 1787 or the legislation of congress, it ceased to have any operative force, except as voluntarily adopted by her after she became a state of the Union. On her admission she at once became entitled to and possessed of all the rights of dominion and sovereignty which belonged to the original states. She was admitted, and could be admitted, only on the same footing with them. The language of the act of admission is, 'on an equal footing with the original states in all respects whatever.' 3 St. 536. Equality of constitutional right and power is the condition of all the states of the Union, old and new...."

In 1911, Arizona sought admission with a constitutional provision allowing for the recall of judges. President Taft vetoed the provision. While the question was before Congress, the High Court rendered decision in Coyle v. Smith, which determined that if a State was admitted, it must be on the basis of full equality with the older States, and that any political restrictions or conditions imposed would have no binding force on it, once it was in the Union.

Although Arizona removed the recall section from its proposed constitution for admission in 1912, it re-inserted the provision after statehood and it has remained a part of its constitution.