Tennessee became the 16th U.S. state

On June 1, 1796, President George Washington signed the legislation that made Tennessee the 16th state to join the Union. What made it remarkable was not just the new star on the flag: Tennessee was the first state ever developed from a federal territory, rather than from one of the original colonies or a state’s existing land.

The land had reached Washington by a roundabout path. North Carolina ceded its western country to the federal government, which in 1790 organized it as the Territory South of the River Ohio — the “Southwest Territory.” When an early census showed enough settlers, 55 delegates gathered at Knoxville in January 1796 and drafted a state constitution in just under a month.

Because no territory had ever graduated to statehood before, Congress had to invent the process as it went.

Federalist lawmakers, fearing the new state’s votes in the coming election, stalled until the session’s final day. The close approval set the precedent that would later guide dozens of western territories into the Union.