New Mexico Territory of New Mexico for a half-century until admitted to the Union in 1912 as the 47th state (followed just under six weeks later by the Arizona Territory/State of Arizona, which became the 48th state, finally filling out the coast-to-coast continental expanse of the United States). As the route to California, New Mexico Territory was disputed territory during the American Civil War. Settlers in the southern part of the Territory willingly joined the Confederate States in 1861 as the newly organized Confederate Territory of Arizona, with a representative delegate to the Confederate Congress in the capital of Richmond. This territory consisted
Admission to the Union formed in the Northwest Territory under either ordinance. In August, 1789, the ordinance was replaced by the Northwest Ordinance of 1789, in which the new Congress (under the present Constitution) reaffirmed the Ordinance with slight modifications. The territory itself remained in existence until 1803, when the southeastern portion of it was admitted to the Union as the State of Ohio, and the remainder was reorganized. While the articles of Confederation were in effect, the Congress considered various ordinances admitting particular new states into the Union, none of which were approved: At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, a proposal to include the