| December 10, 1856 | Henry M. Rice, delegate to Congress from the territory of Minnesota, introduces a bill in the House of Representatives “authorizing the citizens of the Territory of Minnesota to hold a convention for the purpose of forming a constitution, preparatory to her admission as a State into the Union” |
| December 24, 1856 | “A bill to authorize the people of the Territory of Minnesota to form a constitution and State government, preparatory to their admission into the Union on an equal footing with the original States” (H.R. 642) is referred to Committee on Territories |
| February 26, 1857 | H.R. 642, known as the “enabling act,” passes Congress and is signed by the president. Among other provisions, this act calls for a constitutional convention to draft a constitution that would be the foundation for state government. |
| May 23, 1857 | Minnesota Territorial Legislature appropriates $30,000 for the expenses of a constitutional convention of 108 delegates |
| June 1, 1857 | Minnesota voters elected delegates to the constitutional convention |
| July 13, 1857 | Constitution convention begins. Intense rivalry between the convention's Democratic and Republican factions prevented the entire body of delegates from convening in one place and drafting a single constitution. Each party conducts own convention. [NOTE: This date was also the 70th anniversary of the passage of the Northwest Ordinance from which Minnesota gained much of its fundamental governmental principles and a substantial portion of its territory.] |
| August 18, 1857 | The two conventions agree to a conference committee of five members from each faction to propose language designed to be acceptable to both bodies. |
| August 28, 1857 | After bitter debate, both factions approve the conference committee's proposed language. However, the members of each faction refuse to sign a single document that contained the signatures of the other faction's members. |
| August 29, 1857 | Fifty-three Republican members sign one document of 39 pages and fifty-one Democratic members sign one document of 37 pages. Although the two documents were intended to be identical and to have the same meaning, the copyists, who worked feverishly through the night of August 28, 1857, to prepare the two documents for signature, created numerous differences. A detailed comparison of the two versions shows over 300 punctuation, grammatical, and wording differences. No substantive differences in meaning or interpretation are present. |
| October of 1857 | Census, authorized by enabling act, is completed; population of the territory was 150,037. |
| October 13, 1857 | An election was held on for voters to accept or reject the constitution. The result: 30,055 for acceptance and 571 for rejection. (The ballots used for this purpose were printed to provide only for affirmative votes. A voter who wished to reject the constitution had to alter his ballot and write in a negative vote.) |
| December 3, 1857 | The Minnesota legislature, without waiting for congressional approval, convened and promptly passed two amendments to the constitution. |
| January 11, 1858 | President Buchanan transmits Minnesota Constitution (Democratic version) to the Senate and notifies House of his action. |
| January 26, 1858 | Committee on Territories reports out a bill of admission as S. 86. |
| March 24, 1858 | Senate agrees to consider S. 86. |
| April 7, 1858 | S. 86 passes Senate |
| April 15, 1858 | In the meantime, the two amendments to the Constitution passed by the Minnesota legislature are ratified by voters at a special election. |
| May 11, 1858 | Minnesota becomes the thirty-second state of
the union. After much debate in both houses, Congress passes S. 86 and the President signs the act that admits Minnesota into the union. There is substantial authority that Congress saw both the 1857 democratic and republican constitutions as well as the amended constitution. |
| May 24, 1858 | The state officers take their oaths of office and Minnesota’s state government begins to function. Although Congress and the President admitted Minnesota to the union on May 11, 1858, word did not reach St. Paul until almost two weeks later. Minnesota had no telegraph lines or railroads, so a telegram was sent to Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, and carried up the Mississippi River to St. Paul by Steamboat. |