Today marks the 149th Anniversary of the admission of Colorado into the United States as the 38th state, but the road to statehood was a bumpy ride. Despite Denver becoming a city in 1858, it would be another 18 years before Colorado Statehood. Find out the wild history as to why Colorado became a state on the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, 1876.
Indigenous History, Jefferson and Colorado Territory
Prior to the first organizations of the settlers, Colorado had several different tribes, including the Arapaho, Apache, Cheyenne, Comanche, Shoshone, and Ute tribes. The Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1851 established the right of the land around Denver to the Arapaho tribe primarily. That being said, the Pike’s Place gold rush of the late 1850’s led to the regular breaking of this treaty, and the negotiation of the Treaty of Fort Wise in 1861, which reduced tribal land exponentially for all tribal nations, but primarily the Arapaho.
Much of early settlement in the area was a result of both de facto and de jure land grabs, with the Territory of Jefferson being the result. As early as October 24th 1859, Jefferson organized but did not receive statehood due to the debate over slavery in the United States. Throughout the 1830’s to the outbreak of the Civil War, free and slave states had been admitted in a sort of delicate balancing act: when a free state was admitted, a slave state was usually admitted shortly after, or vice versa. This balance even found its way when single states were admitted: when California became a state in 1850, they agreed to send a pro-slavery and anti-slavery senator to DC to keep the balance at the federal level.
Meanwhile in Jefferson, the first Legislature had organized in 1859, creating 17 counties and luring people in eastern Kansas territory who wanted to escape the bloodiness of Bleeding Kansas. In 1860, the second session of the Jefferson Territory organized in Denver City.
National and territorial politics collided when Kansas became a state on January 29th, 1861, a month after, Congress passed a bill organizing Jefferson into the Territory of Colorado, appointing William Gilpin the first Territorial Governor of Colorado. Gilpin, a fervent believer in Manifest Destiny, believed aggressive westward expansion would effectively make the arid climate hospitable to life in the widely debunked theory “rain follows the plow“. His successor, John Evans, would be a fervent fighter for statehood. The legacy of Evans today, however, is largely defined by his ordering of the Sand Creek Massacre, the systemic killing of a Cheyenne and Arapahoe tent village perpetrated by Colonel John Chivington.
The Civil War and Early Statehood Attempts
The outbreak of the Civil War stalled ambitions for statehood for Colorado Territory. The rapid tide of miners that came to the territory slowed as men moved back east to fight in the war.
That didn’t mean, however, that Colorado Territory didn’t play a role in the war. In fact, a two regiments of Coloradans under the command of Union General Edward Canby fought back Confederate Forces at the Battle of Glorietta Pass, which took place in New Mexico.
That being said, the first attempt of Colorado statehood in 1864 failed, as there was fear among the populace of high taxes and forced military conscription during the Civil War.
In 1865 and 1866, Colorado tried again for statehood, and was rebuffed by Democratic President Andrew Johnson, who, during an impeachment trial, feared that Colorado would send 2 Republican senators that would result in conviction in the Senate.
Later Statehood Attempts
By 1868, statehood was tried again for Colorado, with John Evans, former Territorial governor, being the biggest proponent of it. He was derailed by Henry Teller1, a political opponent who undermined the state effort by saying that Colorado’s population was too small to be a state, saying that John Evans’ 75000 population claim was incorrect. Teller was correct, with the 1870 Census showing Colorado Territory at a population of 39,864 people total.2
When Johnson left the White House, the appetite for statehood waned now that the White House and Senate were both Republican, and 5 years passed until the final statehood push.
Success At the Federal Level
The success of Colorado statehood was the confluence of a couple different factors. First, the election of Republican President Ulysses S. Grant gave Republicans in the territory an ally in the White House, with Grant and Vice President Schuyler Colfax3 supporting the idea of statehood with the anticipation of 2 additional Republicans in the US Senate. The second factor that led to the success of statehood was Jerome B. Chaffee. Chaffee, a former businessman turned territorial delegate, wanted to become a US Senator, and lobbied Grant to push Congress to pass the Colorado Statehood Bill, or what was officially called the Colorado Enabling Act of 1875. The vote for the Resolution was 164 to 83 on March 3rd, 1875, with the caveat after further amendments being that Coloradans would have to make their own Constitution.
The Constitutional Convention and Statehood
While East Coast publication strongly opposed Coloradan Statehood due to a perception of their citizens as barbaric, 39 delegates met in Denver in 1876 to draft the Constitution of the State of Colorado. The Colorado Constitution was completed on March 14th, 1876, with approval by the voters 14,443 for and 4,062 against on July 1st, 1876. A month later, President Grant Issued a Proclamation, making Colorado the 38th State of the United States. The first two Senators, Jerome B Chaffee and William Teller, were Republicans.
- Henry Teller is the namesake for Teller County ↩︎
- While there are no hard and fast population requirements to become a state according to the US Constitution, The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 required in the territories within its boundaries to have over 60,000 people in it to petition for statehood ↩︎
- Schuyler Colfax himself became the namesake for Colfax Avenue in 1868, as he was Speaker of the House during the Johnson Administration ↩︎
- One full quote from a newspaper is as follows “The population (of Colorado) is made up of a roving, unsettled horde of adventurers, who have no settled homes, there or elsewhere, and they are there, solely because the state of semi-barbarism prevalent in that wild country suits their vagrant habits. There is something repulsive in the idea that a few handfuls of rough miners and reckless bushwhackers, numbering less than 100,000, should have the same representation in the Senate as Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New York and that these few thousands should have the same voice in our Legislation and administration of the government, as the millions of other States” ↩︎
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