How U.S. States Got Their First Constitutions

The Constitution allows Congress to admit new states into the United States. Congress has exercised this power 37 times since 1791, when the United States already consisted of 13 states.

wdt_ID	State	1st Constitution	Entered Union	Independent Convention?	Popular Ratification?
1	Delaware	1776	12/07/1787		N
2	Pennsylvania	1776	12/12/1787		N
3	New Jersey	1776	12/18/1787		N
4	Georgia	1777	01/02/1788		N
5	Connecticut++	1818	01/09/1788		Y
6	Massachusetts	1780	02/06/1788		Y
7	Maryland	1776	04/28/1788		N
8	South Carolina	1776	05/23/1788		N
9	New Hampshire	1776	06/21/1788		N
10	Virginia	1776	06/25/1788		N
11	New York	1777	07/26/1788		N
12	North Carolina	1776	11/21/1789		N
13	Rhode Island++	1842	05/29/1790		Y
14	Vermont	1777	03/04/1791		N
15	Kentucky	1792	06/01/1792		N
16	Tennessee	1796	06/01/1796		N
17	Ohio	1802	03/01/1803		N
18	Louisiana	1812	04/30/1812		N
19	Indiana	1816	12/11/1816	Y	N
20	Mississippi	1817	12/10/1817		N
21	Illinois	1818	12/03/1818		N
22	Alabama	1819	12/14/1819		N
23	Maine	1819	03/14/1820	Y	Y
24	Missouri	1820	08/10/1821		N
25	Arkansas+++	1836	06/15/1836		N
26	Michigan	1835	01/26/1837	Y	Y
27	Florida	1839	03/03/1845	Y	Y
28	Texas	1845	12/29/1845	Y	Y
29	Iowa	1846	12/28/1846	Y	Y
30	Wisconsin	1848	05/29/1848	Y	Y
31	California	1849	09/09/1850	Y	Y
32	Minnesota	1857	05/11/1858	Y	Y
33	Oregon	1857	02/14/1859	Y	Y
34	Kansas	1859	01/29/1861	Y	Y
35	West Virginia	1863	06/20/1863	Y	Y
36	Nevada	1864	10/31/1864	Y	Y
37	Nebraska	1886	03/01/1867	Y	Y
38	Colorado	1876	08/01/1876	Y	Y
39	North Dakota	1889	11/02/1889	Y	Y
40	South Dakota	1889	11/02/1889	Y	Y
41	Montana	1889	11/08/1889	Y	Y
42	Washington	1889	07/03/1890	Y	Y
43	Idaho	1889	07/03/1890	Y	Y
44	Wyoming	1889	07/10/1890	Y	Y
45	Utah	1895	01/04/1896	Y	Y
46	Oklahoma	1907	11/16/1907	Y	Y
47	New Mexico	1912	01/06/1912	Y	Y
48	Arizona	1911	02/14/1912	Y	Y
49	Alaska	1956	01/03/1959	Y	Y
50	Hawaii	1950	08/21/1959	Y	Y
	State	1st Constitution	Entered Union	Independent Convention?	Popular Ratification?

Notes:

Major sources for this chart were Albert Sturm’s Thirty Years of State Constitution-Making, National Municipal League, 1970, and Admission of States to the Union: A Historical Reference Guide, CRS, Oct. 6, 2023.

*Legislature initiated, proposed, and ratified constitution.

**Legislature in one session initiated and proposed. After an inverting election, a second legislature ratified.

+ Connecticut and Rhode Island continued using their colonial charters after the U.S. became independent of Great Britain. Not until many years later did they write their own constitutions.

++ Legislature failed to provide an opportunity for voters to vote on whether to call a convention. But note that this is not initiation power in that the legislature determines whether to put the question on the ballot.

+++ On the ratification vote, some Arkansas counties allowed voters to express an opinion about statehood on their ballots. But the vote wasn’t mandatory and wasn’t specifically to ratify the proposed state constitution.