Alaska Statehood Act
( Dwight D. Eisenhower , seated, and then Vice-President Richard Nixon , left)
The Alaska Statehood Act is one of US President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed on 7 July 1958 law that the Territory of Alaska on January 3, 1959, the 49th state of the United States made.
Alaska's efforts for state status date back to the 1920s . Parts of the population felt they were being discriminated against by the federal government to which the territory was subordinate, but without having the rights of a federal state. Others feared the higher taxes that state recognition would bring.
The efforts of Alaska were only noticed by the federal government after the Second World War , when the strategically important location of the territory , which had been a federal territory up until then , became apparent due to its proximity to Russia .
A referendum in Alaska in 1946 resulted in a 3-2 majority for state recognition. With this result behind him, Edward Lewis Bartlett , representative of the Alaska Territory in the US House of Representatives , introduced a corresponding bill in Congress . The proposal was rejected by the Republican Party , which feared that the representatives of Alaska in Congress would strengthen the Democrats . A second bill in 1949 passed Congress in 1950, but failed again in the Senate due to resistance from the Republicans .
As a result of a Constitutional Convention held in Fairbanks in 1955 , the Constitution of Alaska was passed with a large majority in 1956 . Another step towards recognition as a state was the election and posting of unofficial representatives of Alaska to Congress. Ernest Gruening and William Egan entered the United States Congress without being officially recognized or having voting rights.
After earlier opponents of Alaska as a state, such as Sam Rayburn, swung to the side of supporters, including Senator Lyndon B. Johnson , the law was passed in July 1958 and Alaska became the 49th state of the United States.
Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock has the smell of other people's houses presented (2016) conflicts within Alaska because of the change in status, between supporters and opponents, novelistic.
Web links
- Alaska Statehood Act ( Memento of October 5, 2012 in the Internet Archive )