Ohio Admitted to the Union
In 1803, Ohio was admitted as the 17th state of the United States, marking it as the first state established from the Northwest Territory, which was acquired after the American Revolution. However, the exact date of Ohio's admission was not officially recognized until 1953, when Congress declared March 1, 1803, as the date when Ohio's state legislature first convened. The push for statehood began in earnest in 1798, after a census indicated that the territory had enough residents to establish a representative government. This led to the formation of a legislative assembly, despite some resistance from western regions regarding the financial burden of participation.
The Enabling Act, signed by President Thomas Jefferson in 1802, allowed for a convention to draft a state constitution, which was completed within 25 days, emphasizing a strong legislative branch and limited gubernatorial powers. The constitution was adopted without direct input from the populace, and the new legislature met for the first time on March 1, 1803. Although there were no formal ceremonies for Ohio's admission, the extension of federal laws over the territory began in February of that year. Initially, Chillicothe served as the state capital, later relocating to Columbus in 1816, which remains the capital today. This historical context reflects the complexities and ambitions of early statehood in the American Midwest.
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Ohio Admitted to the Union
Ohio Admitted to the Union
In 1803, Ohio became the 17th state in the Union. It was the first state to be created from the Northwest Territory acquired from Great Britain after the American Revolution. The date of Ohio's admission to the Union was not definitely designated in 1803. However, during the state's sesquicentennial year of 1953, a joint resolution of Congress declared that Ohio had officially joined the Union on March 1, 1803, the date when its state legislature convened for the first time.
An important step toward the eventual creation of the first state in the Northwest region was taken in 1798, when a census showed that the territory had more than the 5,000 adult male residents required for the territory to advance to the second, or representative, stage of government. In December of that year, Northwest Territory governor Arthur St. Clair issued a proclamation ordering the election of a territorial legislature, which was to meet in Cincinnati. The call to select representatives evoked a mixed response. The inhabitants of what is now Ohio were eager to choose delegates to the proposed legislative gathering, but the residents of the more westerly regions of the Northwest Territory were reluctant to assume the financial burden of sending representatives to distant Cincinnati.
The western regions' reluctance to send delegates to underscored the difficulty of governing the large Northwest Territory and revived interest in plans for subdividing the area. St. Clair seized the opportunity to put forth his suggestion to create three separate territories with seats of government at Marietta, Cincinnati, and Vincennes. The Jeffersonian Republicans objected to his proposal, since they realized that it would divide the strongly Republican Scioto Valley and thereby indefinitely delay Ohio's admission to statehood. Instead they advocated that the Northwest be split into only two territories and that the dividing line extend from the mouth of the Kentucky River (west of Cincinnati) to Fort Recovery in what is now eastern Indiana, and from that point directly north to the Canadian border. Under this proposal, the western part of the region, to be known as the Indiana Territory with its capital at Vincennes, would have included most of what are now Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin, part of Minnesota, and the western half of Michigan. The diminished remainder of the Northwest Territory, with its seat of government at Chillicothe, was to include all of Ohio and the eastern part of Michigan. The plan of the Jeffersonian Republicans gained the approval of the United States Congress on May 7, 1800.
The advocates of statehood pressed for Ohio's admission into the Union. Congress and President Thomas Jefferson were sympathetic to this desire, and on April 30, 1802, Jefferson signed an enabling act passed by Congress. The act authorized the election of delegates to a convention, which would meet on the first Monday in November 1802 to consider the feasibility of statehood and to draw up a constitution for the proposed new state. It also revised Ohio's western boundary and essentially established the state's present-day borders.
Ohioans enthusiastically responded to news of the enabling act, and the 35 delegates to the November convention reflected the citizenry's desire for statehood. One observer counted 26 Jeffersonian Republicans, 7 Federalists, and 2 persons of unknown political affiliation among the representatives to the convention. The forces favoring statehood were so strong that by the time the delegates met on November 1, 1802, the few emissaries who opposed Ohio's admission to the Union realized that further resistance was futile, and when the vote on statehood was taken only one delegate dissented.
Shortly after the opening of the November meeting, Governor St. Clair (who opposed statehood) received permission to address the gathering in an unofficial capacity. He could not reconcile himself to the inevitability of Ohio's statehood, and he denounced the enabling act as “in truth a nullity,” which, he said, had divested the people of the territory “of the rights they were in possession of without a hearing, bartered away like sheep in a market.” The speech infuriated the Republicans; President Jefferson removed St. Clair from office, and the former governor, who never again held a public position, retired to Pennsylvania, where he died in 1818.
Ignoring St. Clair's protestations, the convention drew up the constitution for the new state in only 25 days. Reflecting the difficulties its framers had had with St. Clair, the document severely restricted the powers of the governor. The constitution also provided for a supreme court of three (later four) justices, but it vested the greatest authority in the new state in a legislature consisting of two chambers.
The people of Ohio were not called upon to ratify this 1802 constitution. Instead, the convention merely called upon them to elect the new state's legislature and scheduled that body to meet on the first Tuesday in March 1803. In the meantime, Thomas Worthington carried Ohio's acceptance of statehood to Washington, D.C., along with a copy of the new constitution, signed by all the members of the November 1802 convention. Federal laws were extended over Ohio on February 19, 1802. However, Congress did not mark Ohio's admission to the Union with any official ceremonies or statements. Thus, in 1953 the day of the first meeting of the Ohio legislature (March 1, 1803) was selected as the date on which Ohio had become a state.
Chillicothe was Ohio's state capital until 1810, when the seat of government was moved to Zanesville. In 1812 the government returned temporarily to Chillicothe, and then moved to Columbus, which became Ohio's permanent capital in 1816.