Excerpt from Constitutions of Arizona and New Mexico
The Senate having under consideration the resolution (S. J. Res. 2) approving the constitutions formed by the constitutional conventions of the Territory of New Mexico and the Territory of Arizona -
Mr. CHAMBERLAIN said:
Mr. President: The Sixty-first Congress passed an act entitled "An act to enable the people of New Mexico to form a constitution and State government and be admitted to the Union on an equal footing with the original States, and to enable the people of Arizona to form a constitution and State government and be admitted to the Union on an equal footing with the original States." This act was approved by the President on the 20th day of June, 1910.
On the 21st day of January, 1911, the people of New Mexico adopted a constitution, and on the 7th day of February, 1911. the people of Arizona adopted theirs. An effort was made in the expiring moments of the last Congress to adopt House joint resolution 295, approving the constitution of New Mexico, and the purpose of the friends of the resolution, in the light of subsequent events, seems to have been to admit New Mexico to the Union and postpone or defeat the admission of Arizona. But if this was the purpose it was defeated, because the friends of Arizona were there to insist that the same treatment should be accorded to the people of both Territories, and the splendid fight made by the distinguished Senator from Oklahoma to see that equal and exact justice should be accorded to the people of both is fresh in the minds of most of the Members of this body.
No enabling act was necessary under the Constitution, nor under any law of Cougress, to authorize the people of either of these Territories to apply to Congress for admission to the Union. On the contrary, the method of procedure has been left entirely to the States, and in some instances, notably upon the admission of Vermont, Kentucky, Tennessee, Maine, Michigan, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, California, and Oregon, the initial steps were taken for the preparation of their constitutions and admission to the Union without any enabling acts having been previously passed by Congress.
The act in question is the first in the history of our country where provision has been made in a single act enabling two Territories to take the initial steps looking to the framing and adoption of a constitution as preliminary to their knocking at the doors of Congress for admission as component parts of the Federal Union.
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