Volume 14 , Issue 46

1907 Statehood Proclamation

The 1907 Statehood Proclamation By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation: Whereas, The congress of the United States did by an act approved June 16, 1906, provide that the inhabitants of the Territory of Oklahoma and of the Indian Territory might, under and upon the conditions prescribed in said act, adopt a constitution and become the state of Oklahoma, and,

Whereas, By the said act provision was duly made for the election of a constitutional convention to form a constitution and state government for the said proposed state; and, whereas, it appears from the information laid before me that such convention was duly elected and such consitution and state government were thereby duly formed; and,

Whereas, By the said act the said convention was further authorized and empowered to provide by ordinance for submitting the said constitution to the people of the said state for ratification or rejection and likewise for the ratification or rejection of any provisions thereof to be by the said convention separately submitted; and,

Whereas, It has been certified to me, as required by the said act by the governor of the Territory of Oklahoma and by the judge senior in service of the United States court of appeals for the Indian Territory, that a majority of the legal votes cast at an election duly provided for by ordinance, as required by said act, have been cast for the adoption of said constitution; and,

Whereas, A copy of the said consitution has been certified to me, as required by said act, together with the articles, propositions and ordinances pertaining thereto, including a separate propsition for state-wide prohibition, which has been certified to me as having been adopted by a majority of the electors at the election aforesaid; and,

Whereas, It appears from the information laid before me that the convention, aforesaid after its organization and before the formation of the said constitution duly declared on behalf of the people of the said proposed state that they adopted the constituion of the United States; and,

Whereas, It appears that the said constituion and government of the proposed state of Oklahoma are republican in form and that the said constitution makes no distinction in civil or political rights on account of race or color, and is not repugnant to the constitution of the United States or to the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and that it contains all of the six provisions expressly required by section three of the said act to be therin contained; and, Whereas, It further appears fromt he information laid before me that the convention above mentioned did by ordinance irrevocable accept the terms and conditions of said act as required by section twenty=two thereof, and that all the provisions of the said act approved June 16, 1906, have been duly compiled with, now, therefore,

I, Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, do in accordance with the provisions of the said act of congress of June 16, 1906, declare and announce that the result of the said election, wherein the constituion formed as aforesaid was submitted to the people of the proposed state of Oklahoma for ratification or rejection, was that the said constitution was ratified, together with the provision for statewide prohibition, separately submitted at the said election, and the state of Oklahoma is to be admitted by congress into the union under and by virtue of the said act on an equal footing with the original states.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the city of Washington this sixteenth day of November, in the year of our Lord, one thousand nine hundred and seven, and of the independence of the United States of America, the one hundred and thrity-first.

(Signed) THEODORE ROOSEVELT
By the President:
E. ROOT, Secretary of State
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