Louisiana Admitted to the Union
Louisiana was admitted as the 18th state to the United States on April 30, 1812, marking the first formal incorporation of territory from the Louisiana Purchase. This significant event came exactly nine years after the cession of the Louisiana Territory to the U.S. The region's complex history began with French exploration and settlement in the late 17th century, followed by Spanish control and the eventual return to France before the American acquisition. The transition to American governance was marked by local dissatisfaction, particularly due to new laws and the English language's imposition, which conflicted with the established French customs and traditions.
The path to statehood involved several political negotiations, with residents advocating for a government structure that mirrored their needs and cultural heritage. In 1810, despite some opposition, the population of the Territory of Orleans met the threshold for statehood, prompting Congress to authorize the drafting of a state constitution. This constitution was approved within weeks, and Louisiana officially became a state, initially encompassing a larger area than it holds today. Over time, Louisiana's statehood status would be challenged by the Civil War, leading to its temporary secession and subsequent readmission into the Union with a new constitution in 1868.
Louisiana Admitted to the Union
Louisiana Admitted to the Union
On April 30, 1812, Louisiana became the 18th state in the United States of America. It was the first state to be carved out of the vast area of the Louisiana Purchase, which stretched across a vast portion of the continental United States and would in later years be divided into many other states. Thus, it was quite appropriate that Louisiana formally gained statehood on the ninth anniversary of the official date of cession of the Louisiana Territory.
The nine-year period from the beginning of American jurisdiction over Louisiana in 1803 to statehood in 1812 was a time of considerable difficulty and frustration for the inhabitants of that region. The vast area of Louisiana came under the control of France in 1682, when René-Robert Cavelier de La Salle, reached the mouth of the Mississippi River and claimed the lands bordering the river and its tributaries for King Louis XIV. The first French settlers came to what is now Louisiana in 1699, and they, and those who followed, firmly established the customs, government, and language of their homeland in the area at the mouth of the Mississippi.
For more than 70 years following La Salle's explorations, the Mississippi valley, including what is now Louisiana, remained under French control. Then, in 1762, France ceded its claim to the area west of the Mississippi to Spain. Spanish rule over the vast territory lasted until 1800 when Spain returned the area to France. However, even during the time of Spanish jurisdiction, the settlers clung to their French language and traditions. The American purchase from France of the vast, ill-defined area west of the Mississippi in 1803 disrupted the lives of the inhabitants of New Orleans and the surrounding countryside to a much greater extent than had the previous period of Spanish rule.
On March 26, 1804, the United States Congress passed an act dividing the Louisiana Purchase into two parts: the Territory of Orleans, comprising that “portion south of the Mississippi Territory and on an east and west line, to commence on the Mississippi River at the thirty-third degree of north latitude and extend west to the western boundary of the cession “; and the District of Louisiana, composed of the remainder of the area purchased. The act provided that the District of Louisiana, or upper Louisiana, as it was also known, be placed under the jurisdiction of the government of the Indiana Territory, but it established a separate government for the Territory of Orleans.
The government that Congress set up for the Territory of Orleans was unlike any other then existing in the United States or its territories. It consisted of a governor vested with full executive powers, to be appointed by the president; a 13-member legislative council, to be named by the president; a superior court of three judges, also to be presidential appointees; “and such inferior courts and justices of the peace as the Legislature of the Territory might establish.” English was made the official language of the territory, and “the importation of slaves from foreign countries was forbidden, and that of those from the United States was allowed only to citizens, bona fide owners, removing to the Territory.”
The congressional debate preceding the passage of the 1804 act was heated. One Massachusetts representative claimed that the inhabitants of the new territory were not ready for full citizenship and should be treated “as if they were a conquered country.” Others disagreed. Indeed, some members of Congress felt that the government established for the Territory of Orleans was too harsh and even contrary to the treaty of cession, which guaranteed that “the inhabitants of the ceded territory [the Louisiana Purchase] shall be incorporated in the union of the United States and admitted as soon as possible according to the principles of the federal Constitution to the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages and immunities of citizens of the United States.”
The government that Congress established for the Territory of Orleans greatly dissatisfied the residents of what is now Louisiana. They had expected immediate admission to statehood and resented the territorial status that Congress imposed. Furthermore, they disliked the introduction of jury trials, a phenomenon that previously had no place in their legal system, and they were unhappy that English was now the territory's official language since few could read or speak it. To protest the Act of 1804, the mayor of New Orleans resigned, and on June 1, 1804, a group of planters and merchants met in New Orleans to initiate more practical measures. They drew up petitions asking Congress to repeal the legislation relating to the division of the Louisiana Purchase and to the prohibitions against the importation of slaves. They also decided to request immediate statehood for Louisiana. In the following weeks, they circulated these memorials among the populace, and late in the summer they sent a committee of three to Washington, D.C., to place their demands before Congress.
In November 1804, President Thomas Jefferson suggested to Congress that improvements be made in the government of the Louisiana Purchase territory, and in December 1804 Pierre Darbigny, Pierre Sauvé, and Jean Noel Destréhan presented to the House of Representatives the petition that had been circulated through the Orleans territory during the previous summer. In 1805, Congress acted quickly to correct the harsher aspects of the government it had established the previous year. On March 2 it passed an act setting up a separate territorial government for upper Louisiana and created a government for the Orleans territory that was similar to that established for the Northwest Territory in 1787. The New Orleans government consisted of a house of representatives to be elected by the inhabitants of the territory; a legislative council whose five members were to be chosen by the president from among ten nominees presented by the elected house; and a governor, secretary, and judges of the superior court, who would be named by the president with the consent of the Senate. The 1805 act also provided that the territory be admitted to statehood as soon as its free population numbered 60,000.
The new government did not entirely please the inhabitants of the Orleans territory, and one official remarked that “the people of Louisiana complained that in this form, as in the preceding, their lives and property were in some degree at the disposal of a single individual.” In addition, the territory was plagued by external difficulties. In 1806 Spanish troops attempted to establish a post near Natchitoches in an area claimed by the United States. About the same time Aaron Burr, the former vice -president of the United States, became involved in a plot which included a plan to detach an area of the Louisiana Purchase from the United States. Fortunately, neither the Spanish raids nor the alleged Burr conspiracy developed into a major threat to the Orleans territory. Instead, the area continued to prosper, and by 1809 the territorial legislature petitioned Congress for statehood. William C. C. Claiborne, the territorial governor, forwarded the petition to Washington with a letter listing a number of reasons for denying the legislature's request. Nevertheless, the Senate approved the petition in March 1810. The House of Representatives, however, sent it to a committee, and Congress adjourned before the House had voted on the question.
In December 1810, Louisiana's request for admission to the Union again came before Congress. Opponents of the statehood bill cited the difficulties posed by the ill-defined boundaries between the territory and the possessions claimed by Spain in the Southwest, and the French culture of almost all the inhabitants. However, Congress had promised that the Territory of Orleans would be admitted to the Union when its population reached 60,000 free inhabitants, and the 1810 federal census showed the area to have 76,550 free residents. On February 11, 1811, Congress authorized the Orleans territory to draw up a state constitution. A convention meeting from November 1811 to January 1812 formulated the necessary frame of government for Louisiana and on April 8, 1812, Congress gave its approval to this work.
The new state of Louisiana was originally to have encompassed the area of the present state west of the Mississippi and the Isle of Orleans. However, only four days after Congress had approved Louisiana's constitution, it passed an act that added the area of West Florida between the Mississippi and Pearl rivers (the so-called Florida Parishes) to the new state. Thus it was a substantially enlarged area that ended its territorial status and officially became the state of Louisiana on April 30, 1812.
Like other Southern states, Louisiana declared its secession from the Union shortly before the beginning of the Civil War. Its full rights of statehood were restored in July 1868, after the drafting of a new constitution that enfranchised black citizens. The constitution of 1868 was succeeded by the far more restrictive one of 1898, and that in turn was succeeded by a number of others.