On this day in 1816…
…Indiana became a state. On that day James Madison, President of the United States, approved the Congressional resolution formally admitting Indiana to the Union. That resolution read as follows:
Resolution for admitting the State of Indiana into the Union.
Whereas, in pursuance of an act of Congress, passed on the nineteenth day of April, one thousand eight hundred and sixteen, entitled “An act to enable the people of the Indiana Territory to form a constitution and State government, and for the admission of that State into the Union,” the people of the said Territory did, on the twenty-ninth day of June, 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 with the principles of the articles of compact between the original States and the people and States in the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio, passed the thirteenth day of July, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven:
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the State of Indiana 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.
Approved, December 11, 1816
Source: Annals of Congress, 14th Cong., 2 Sess., 1348; U.S. Statues at Large, III, 399-400; Kettleborough (ed.), Constitution Making in Indiana, I, 129-132.
