New Mexico And Arizona's Statehood Speech Analysis

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It took New Mexico more than 50 years to transform from a territory to a state. The first time New Mexicans attempted to gain statehood was in 1850. Reasons such as general ignorance about the territory and suspicions towards its people are what caused New Mexico so long to become a state. People also questioned if these recently conquered people would really be loyal to their new country. In 1876 during a congressional debate, Michigan Representative, Julius Caesar Burrows, spoke in favor of passing a bill to protect the rights of freed Negros. Stephen B. Elkins, New Mexico’s representative, was not there for most of the speech but did shake his colleges hand in congratulations.
This specific handshake in said to be blamed for costing New …show more content…

House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate at the Center for Legislative Archives are many documents that illustrate the important role Congress plays in the creation of states. For both New Mexico and Arizona, the road to statehood was protracted and contentious. However, after much effort, on January 6, 1912 New Mexico became the 47th state and on February 14, 1912 Arizona became the 48th state in the Union. Both states celebrate their 100th anniversaries in 2012. Here is a sample of the many congressional records that document New Mexico's and Arizona's long journeys to statehood. …show more content…

At the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in 1898, President William McKinley sent a telegram to Governor Miguel A. Otero, Jr., at Santa Fe, asking him to assist in recruiting stalwart young men who were good shots and good riders. Otero, the first Hispanic to serve as governor of the territory, knew he was on the spot. “Many newspapers in the East,” he later told an interviewer, “were dubious about our loyalty we having such a large Mexican population.” Hoping to lay suspicions to rest, Governor Otero issued a call to every town and ranch in the territory for volunteers and offered his own services, if needed. The response from both Hispanics and Anglos was so generous that afterward Theodore Roosevelt would claim that half the officers and men of his famous Rough Riders Regiment came from New

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