[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 14 (Monday, January 30, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Page S154]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              100TH ANNIVERSARY OF NEW MEXICO'S STATEHOOD

 Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, this month marked the 100th 
anniversary of New Mexico's statehood. In recognition of this occasion, 
the Senate Historian, Donald Ritchie, wrote a wonderful piece 
highlighting the political and ethnic issues surrounding New Mexico's 
efforts to become a State. I thought it would be nice to share this 
historical note with the public by including it in the Congressional 
Record.
  Mr. President, I ask that Mr. Ritchie's Senate Historical Minute, 
titled ``New Mexico Enters the Union,'' be printed in the Record.
  The material follows.

               Senate Historical Minute--January 6, 1912


                      New Mexico Enters the Union

       A century ago, on January 6, 1912, New Mexico entered the 
     Union as a State. This ended a 64-year effort to achieve 
     statehood, stalled by a combination of political and ethnic 
     prejudice.
       In 1848, the United States acquired vast territories in the 
     Southwest under the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, which ended 
     the Mexican War. The problem was how to organize this 
     territory without inflaming tensions between the North and 
     South over the spread of slavery. The treaty had provided 
     that inhabitants of the territories would become citizens and 
     would be admitted into the Union as States ``at the proper 
     time (to be judged by the Congress of the United States).'' 
     President Zachary Taylor thought that sectional tensions 
     might be eased if New Mexico and California immediately 
     applied for statehood and avoided territorial status. The 
     Compromise of 1850 admitted California but ignored New 
     Mexico's application for statehood.
       Over the next six decades, other Western States were 
     admitted ahead of New Mexico. Congress at that time was often 
     divided between a Democratic majority in the House and a 
     Republican majority in the Senate. Each party tried to block 
     the admission of a new State that might give the other party 
     two more Senators. Because New Mexico was viewed as a 
     potentially Democratic state, the Republican Senate thwarted 
     its admission. In 1888, Republican majorities in both houses 
     passed an omnibus statehood bill that enabled North and South 
     Dakota, Washington, and Montana to move towards statehood, 
     but omitted New Mexico.
       Besides politics, New Mexico met resistance from Senators 
     who questioned whether its largely Spanish-speaking, Catholic 
     population was capable of self-government ``in the Anglo-
     Saxon sense.'' Senator Albert Beveridge, who chaired the 
     Committee on Territories, traveled through New Mexico and 
     Arizona in 1902 and came back convinced that neither was 
     ready for statehood. President Theodore Roosevelt, however, 
     was anxious to settle the issue, and to break the logjam he 
     proposed combining the territories of New Mexico and Arizona 
     into a single State. Its capital would be in Sante Fe, but it 
     would take the name Arizona. When submitted to the voters, 
     New Mexico passed the proposal, but Arizona soundly defeated 
     it.
       In his last annual message to Congress, President Roosevelt 
     abandoned the idea of a combined territory and proposed that 
     each should gain statehood. Senator Beveridge continued to 
     fight statehood, but in 1910 Congress adopted the Enabling 
     Act to admit both New Mexico and Arizona. New Mexico 
     immediately submitted an acceptable constitution, but 
     objections were raised against Arizona's more progressive 
     constitution. As a result, New Mexico's admission was blocked 
     by a Senate filibuster until Arizona's constitution was also 
     approved. New Mexico at last became a State on January 6, 
     1912, and Arizona followed a month later.

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