The Enabling Act of 1906, in its first part, empowered the people residing in
Indian Territory
The Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the Federal government of the United States, United States Government for the relocation of Native Americans in the United St ...
and
Oklahoma Territory
The Territory of Oklahoma was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 2, 1890, until November 16, 1907, when it was joined with the Indian Territory under a new constitution and admitted to the Union as th ...
to elect delegates to a state constitutional convention and subsequently to be admitted to the union as a single state.
The act, in its second part, also enabled the people of
Arizona Territory
The Territory of Arizona (also known as Arizona Territory) was a territory of the United States that existed from February 24, 1863, until February 14, 1912, when the remaining extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the state of ...
to form a constitution and State government and be admitted into the Union, requiring a referendum to determine if both territories should be admitted as a single state.Everett, Dianna. ''Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture''. "Enabling Act (1906)." Retrieved January 10, 2012.
Background
The
Oklahoma Organic Act
An Organic Act is a generic name for a statute used by the United States Congress to describe a territory, in anticipation of being admitted to the Union as a state. Because of Oklahoma's unique history (much of the state was a place where aborig ...
of 1890 contemplated admitting Oklahoma and Indian Territories as a single state. However, residents of
Indian Territory
The Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the Federal government of the United States, United States Government for the relocation of Native Americans in the United St ...
sponsored a bill to admit Indian Territory as the
State of Sequoyah
The State of Sequoyah was a proposed state to be established from the Indian Territory in the eastern part of present-day Oklahoma. In 1905, with the end of tribal governments looming (as prescribed by the Curtis Act of 1898), Native Americans ...
, which was defeated in the U. S. Congress in 1905. President
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 β January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...
then proposed a compromise that would join
Indian Territory
The Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the Federal government of the United States, United States Government for the relocation of Native Americans in the United St ...
with
Oklahoma Territory
The Territory of Oklahoma was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 2, 1890, until November 16, 1907, when it was joined with the Indian Territory under a new constitution and admitted to the Union as th ...
to form a single state. This resulted in passage of the Oklahoma Enabling Act, which President Roosevelt signed June 16, 1906.
Requirements for the Oklahoma Constitution
The Act included several other requirements for the Oklahoma Constitution:
* Citizens of the US or members of tribes who have been resident in the territories for at least six months may participate in the constitutional convention and vote in the referendum.Enabling Act Sec 2
* The capital shall temporarily be in
Guthrie, Oklahoma
Guthrie is a city and county seat in Logan County, Oklahoma, United States, and a part of the Oklahoma City Metroplex. The population was 10,191 at the 2010 census, a 2.7 percent increase from the figure of 9,925 in the 2000 census.
First kno ...
, until 1913, when a referendum shall determine a permanent capital.
* Provisions shall be made for a public school system, free from sectarian control and with classes conducted in English (provided that foreign languages may be taught).
** Section 16 and 36 of surplus lands be reserved for the benefit of common schools
** Section 13 of surplus lands be reserved for the benefit of higher education, reserving 1/3 for the University of Oklahoma, 1/3 for the Agricultural and Mechanical College and Colored Agricultural Normal School, and 1/3 for Normal Schools
* That said State shall never enact any law restricting or Right of suffrage or abridging the right of suffrage on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude
* the
Osage Indian Reservation
The Osage Nation ( ) ( Osage: ππ» ππΌπ°ππΌπ°Ν ('), "People of the Middle Waters") is a Midwestern Native American tribe of the Great Plains. The tribe developed in the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys around 700 BC alon ...
be organized as a separate county in the new state
* Preservation of freedom of religion
* Prohibition of polygamy and plural marriage
* Prohibition of the manufacture, sale, barter or gift of liquor for 21 years after statehood
* "nothing contained in the said constitution shall be construed to limit or impair the rights of person or property pertaining to the Indians of said Territories (so long as such rights shall remain unextinguished) or to limit or affect the authority of the Government of the United States to make any law or regulation respecting such Indians, their lands, property, or other rights by treaties, agreement, law, or otherwise, which it would have been competent to make if this act had never been passed."
President Roosevelt proclaimed
Oklahoma
Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, α£α§α³α°αΉ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...
a state on November 16, 1907.
Equal footing doctrine
The requirement to keep Guthrie as the State's temporary capital was challenged in court after
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, it ranks 20th among United States cities in population, and ...
, won the election and the capital was moved prematurely. '' Coyle v. Smith'' was the US Supreme Court Case that helped define the
equal footing
The equal footing doctrine, also known as equality of the states, is the principle in United States constitutional law that all states admitted to the Union under the Constitution since 1789 enter on equal footing with the 13 states already in ...
doctrine.
On December 29, 1910, the state of Oklahoma enacted a statute which removed the state capital from Guthrie to Oklahoma City. W.H. Coyle, owner of large property interests in Guthrie, sued the state of Oklahoma, arguing that the move was performed in violation of the state constitution's acceptance of the terms of Congress's enabling act.
The power given to Congress by Art. IV, Β§ 3, of the Constitution is to admit new States to this Union, and relates only to such States as are equal to each other in power and dignity and competency to exert the residuum of sovereignty not delegated to the Federal Government.
The Supreme Court held that preventing the state of Oklahoma the right to locate its own seat of government deprived it of powers which all other states of the Union enjoyed, and thus violated the traditional constitutional principle that all new states be admitted "on an equal footing with the original states". As a result, the provision of the enabling act which temporarily restricted Oklahoma's right to determine where its seat of government would be was unconstitutional.
Enablement of Arizona and New Mexico statehood
The second part of the act provided for the enablement of the peoples of Arizona and New Mexico to form a state constitution and government in anticipation of admission to the union as a single state. However, the combined state was not admitted under these provisions; instead a separate act, the State Enablement Act of 1910, was enacted and was the statutory vehicle that led to their admissions as individual states.
Failure to disestablish reservations
A pair of
U.S. Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
cases first originating around 2015 challenged part of the Oklahoma Enabling Act by asserting that the Act failed to actually disestablish the reservation lands for the purposes of determining whether a crime committed on those lands was of the state's jurisdiction, if they had been disestablished, or federal, if they remained reservations, under the
Major Crimes Act
The Major Crimes Act (U.S. Statutes at Large, 23:385)Indian country, overseen by federal jurisdiction.