What was admitted to the union as the fourteenth state

It allows for the admission of new states by an act of Congress. Generally speaking, states could not be formed by subdividing existing states without the consent of both concerned legislatures, but West Virginia was accepted into the Union during the Civil War by seceding from Virginia , after Virginia has itself seceded from the Union.

December 7, December 12, New Jersey. December 18, January 2, January 9, February 6, April 28, South Carolina.

May 23, New Hampshire. June 21, June 25, New York. July 26, North Carolina. November 21, Rhode Island.

May 29, March 4, June 1, March 1, April 30, President Lincoln proclaimed that West Virginia would officially be recognized as a state on June 20, Although the issue of statehood had been settled, the status of Berkeley and Jefferson Counties continued to pose a challenge.

The citizens of these counties voted to join West Virginia on February 4, , as permitted in the West Virginia state constitution and approved by the Restored Government of Virginia. However during Reconstruction, Virginia contested the transfer of the counties and argued that Union troops stationed at the polls in had influenced the vote.

On December 5, the Virginia Assembly repealed the legislation that transferred the counties from Virginia to West Virginia. In an attempt to resolve the debate, Congress passed H. The debate continued and finally ended in with the U. Supreme Court case Virginia v. West Virginia in which the Court affirmed that the counties were part of West Virginia. From Delaware, the first state to join the newly-created Union in , to Hawaii, the last one to join in , each state comes with a unique history, geography and cultural heritage.

Each state of the US is an individual entity as well as an inseparable part of the country. The 13 colonies that first became part of the Union were British territories founded in the 17th and 18th centuries. They fought for, and won independence from Britain in and went on to form The Thirteen Colonies. The colonies became part of the United States in with the merging of New Hampshire as the ninth state to ratify the United States Constitution. Each state was formally accepted as a member of the Union once it ratified the Constitution.

Each state has had a unique trajectory and a different reason for joining the Union.