Two political organizational units unique to Louisiana were implemented during this experimental period: the parish system and the police jury system.
In the territorial legislature replaced the twelve counties created shortly after the Louisiana Purchase with nineteen civil parishes. They were modeled on the Catholic parishes that existed during French and Spanish rule.
The parish, rather than the county, still constitutes the basic unit of local government in Louisiana. Under the parish system, the parish judge, justices of the peace, and a group of twelve citizens carried out administrative duties on a local level.
This twelve-person body came to be known as the police jury. The police jury system, modeled after the Spanish system of syndics, was roughly equivalent to most states' county court systems. Territorial officials had to merge English common law, familiar to most Americans, with French and Spanish civil law procedures long practiced in Louisiana. Common law placed greater reliance on the judiciary as the source of new law, whereas civil law looked to other agencies and placed more emphasis on weighing the interests of various groups than on protecting the rights of individuals.
A partial remedy to the legal mayhem was the Civil Code of , which drew upon French and Spanish colonial law and the Napoleonic Code. Its drafters represented both Anglo-American and European factions, and it instituted some unique aspects of Louisiana law. In the United States Congress authorized the calling of a state convention to draw up a constitution for Louisiana.
According to the census, more than 76, people, about half black and half white, resided in the Territory of Orleans, which constituted the present state of Louisiana, minus the parishes east of the Mississippi River. This number exceeded the minimum population of 60, specified for statehood. The convention of forty-three delegates, half Anglo and half of French descent, deliberated in a New Orleans coffeehouse, presided over by prominent planter and politician Julien Poydras.
Louisiana's constitution, conservative for the time, was modeled after that of Kentucky, providing for a two-house legislature, limited suffrage, and extensive executive powers. Only adult white males who paid taxes could vote, disqualifying two-thirds of the adult white male population and all nonwhites and women. Age, property, and residency requirements restricted those who could hold office. Unlike most states, Louisiana's governor had the authority, with senate approval, to appoint all judges and local officials.
This policy of a strong head of state accorded with Louisiana's French and Spanish colonial tradition of powerful governors. On April 30, , exactly nine years after the signing of the Louisiana Purchase, Congress admitted Louisiana as the eighteenth state in the Union. The convention requested that Congress add the Florida parishes to the new state, and Congress honored this request. In late June , Louisianians elected William Claiborne their first state governor. Skip navigation.
Louisiana State Museum. Over , people were directly employed by the Louisiana travel and tourism industry in Louisiana's cultural enterprises provide nearly , jobs for Louisiana citizens, accounting for 7. Extensive coverage areas include most cabins, RV slips and campsites.
Louisiana State Parks Online Reservations You can now make online reservations for cabins, campsites, lodges and group camps — at www. President Zachary Taylor. The couple resided in a small house near the present day location of Capitol Park until Taylor was elected to the Presidency. Smith —Congress required New Mexico to use English in its public schools and to require all public officials to speak English.
Southern states readmitted during Reconstruction were required to protect the suffrage of freed slaves; when admitted in , Utah was required to prohibit polygamy. What these conditions all similarly reflect is a suspicion by the admitting Congress that the new states could be loyal members of the Union and would assimilate to the dominant political values of the American Republic.
In turn, Congress was suspicious of the loyalties of French and Spanish Catholic settlers in Louisiana, of residents of Spanish and Mexican descent in New Mexico, of recently rebellious whites in Southern states after the Civil War, and of Mormons in Utah. Moreover, regardless of the extent to which the Court as a matter of caselaw imposed limits on admissions conditions pursuant to the Equal Footing Doctrine, Congress imposed significant constraints on newly admitted states, and the process of admission subject to these conditions often though not always led to substantial assimilation by the newly admitted states.
English and American common law traditions came to take a leading role in Louisiana politics and law; Mormons in Utah abandoned polygamy.
The history of the decidedly unequal relationship between Congress and newly admitted states—and the continued unequal distribution of federal public lands and associated federal regulatory authority—show the limits of the Equal Footing Doctrine. That is not to say that the Doctrine is not important—it is surely important that Congress cannot use its Admissions Clause powers to force a newly admitted state to only accept one Senator as representation in the Senate.
A separate question that is raised by the Equal Footing Doctrine is the extent to which the Equal Footing Doctrine might reflect a fundamental constitutional requirement that all states be treated equally by Congress with respect to certain core areas of sovereignty, regardless of whether Congress is acting in connection with the admission of a new state or not.
In Shelby County v. Holder , the Supreme Court struck down a portion of the Voting Rights Act that imposed specific procedural requirements on certain states that sought to change their election laws. The Court reasoned that this kind of differential treatment of states infringed on an obligation that states have equal status in certain core matters of sovereignty, and it cited Coyle v. Smith and the Equal Footing Doctrine to support its reasoning. See, e. Online 24 So the extent to which this new principle will continue to be embraced by the Court, and its future scope, are yet to be determined.
Congress has authority to admit new States into the Union. Into what Union? A Union of coequal States. There is no authority to admit States into any other Union. You have a different Union if you have a Union of unequal States. The Court made this same point in Coyle v. Smith :. But what is this power? It is not to admit political organizations which are less or greater, or different in dignity or power, from those political entities which constitute the Union. To maintain otherwise would be to say that the Union, through the power of Congress to admit new States, might come to be a union of States unequal in power.
Buckley Toftus C. When that equality disappears we may remain a free people, but the Union will not be the Union of the Constitution. As such, while the Admissions Clause and the Equal Footing Doctrine themselves concern only the admission of new states, the equal sovereignty principle, upon which the Equal Footing Doctrine is based, is much broader.
Chicago Illinois Thus, per Esconaba , Congress, even when it is exercising its legitimate powers, is constrained to respect the constitutionally mandated sovereign equality of all of the states. Congress cannot use its powers in a way that affords more sovereign authority to some states than to others.
Some territories were required to hold a plebiscite to make sure that residents wanted statehood. Once the territory meets the requirements of Congress, Congress votes. A simple majority in the House and the Senate is all that is required to make a new state. The President of the United States then signs the bill. Some presidents in the past have refused, including Andrew Johnson and Grover Cleveland. Sometimes they have signed the next time the bill reached their desk, and sometimes Congress has waited for a new president, who has signed the bill.
Once this takes place, the territory becomes a State, and has all the rights, responsibilities, and powers of a State. If there are any other conditions, Puerto Rico would have to meet those requirements and then Congress would approve admission for Puerto Rico. These misconceptions just show how long it has been since the U.
A simple majority is all that is required. How Does a Territory Become a State? Puerto Rico Report, April 19, Byers, William N. Congress must take action. You must be logged in to post a comment.
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