Alabama is the 22nd State Admitted to the Union

CONSTITUTION OF 1819 RATIFICATION RESOLUTION FOR ADMISSION OF ALABAMA INTO THE UNION December 14, 1819 Resolution Declaring The Admission Of The State Of Alabama Into The Union.

Whereas in pursuance to an act of Congress, passed on the second day of March, one thousand eight hundred and nineteen, entitled "An act to enable the people of the Alabama Territory to form a Constitution and State government, and for the admission of such state into the Union on an equal footing with the original States", the people of the said Territory did, on the second day of August, in the present year, by a Convention called for that purpose, form for themselves a Constitution and State government, which Constitution and State government so formed is republican, and in conformity to the principles of the articles of Compact, between the original States, and the people and States in the Territory North West of the river Ohio, passed on the thirteenth day of July, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven, so far as the same have been extended to the said Territory by the articles of agreement between the United States and the State of Georgia:

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That the State of Alabama shall be one, and is hereby declared to be one of the United States of America, and admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original States, in all respects whatever.

H. CLAY, Speaker of the House of Representatives
Ja. BARBOUR, President of the Senate, pro tempore

December 14, 1819
Approved, James Monroe

I certify that this Resolution did originate in the Senate.

ATTEST:

Charles Cutts, Secretary

Alabama became a part of the Mississippi Territory in 1798 and more settlers began to enter the area that would become Alabama after Indian cessions in north Alabama and the opening of the federal road in south Alabama in the early 1800s. Migration increased after the end of the Creek War in 1814.

The Alabama Territory was created in 1817 and Alabama's population increased sufficiently that U.S. President Monroe signed the enabling act for statehood on March 2, 1819.

Alabama's constitutional convention met in Huntsville in July 1819 and produced the state's first constitution, a liberal document for its time that included universal white manhood suffrage and direct election of the governor by the people.

Alabama became the 22nd state on December 14, 1819.

Alabama Capitals:

1817-1819. . . . . . . . . St. Stephens—territorial capital
1819. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Huntsville
1820-1825. . . . . . . . . Cahaba
1826-1846. . . . . . . . . Tuscaloosa
1847-present. . . . . . . .Montgomery