ALABAMA DAY
DECEMBER 14TH
TIME LINE

1819

March 2
U.S. Congress passed an enabling act to allow the inhabitants of Alabama Territory to create a constitution for a state government.

May 3-4
Elections for constitutional convention delegates held.

June 5-August 2
Alabama Constitutional Convention, meeting in Huntsville, drafted and adopted constitution.

September 20-21
General elections held for state officers and representatives to the General Assembly.

October 25-December 17
First session of the General Assembly for the State of Alabama met in temporary capital of Huntsville.

November 9
Territorial Governor William W. Bibb, newly elected as the state’s first governor, took the oath of office.

December 14
President James Monroe signed a congressional resolution admitting Alabama as the 22nd state in the United States of America (both the House and Senate of the state’s General Assembly were in session on that Tuesday, meeting jointly in the afternoon to make judicial appointments).

December 17
Governor Bibb and the Legislature in Huntsvile receive news of statehood and adopt resolution of thanks to President Monroe.

1903

December 14
“Alabama Day” first celebrated statewide by public schools at the urging of the State Department of Education and the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

Principal Source: William H. Brantley, Three Capitals (University of Alabama Press, 1976 reprint).

CONSTITUTION
OF THE
STATE OF ALABAMA
1819
        Following the regulations prescribed by Congress for the admission of new states to the Union, the Alabama Territory called a Constitutional Convention to meet in Huntsville, Alabama, on July 5, 1819. By August 2nd the Constitution was drafted, approved, inscribed on parchment, and signed by the delegates attending the Convention. Copies were sent to Washington where they were submitted to the United States Senate and House of Representatives. On December 14, 1819, Resolutions for the admission of Alabama were passed and Alabama became the 22ND state in the Union.

        The original Constitution was kept by the Secretary of State of Alabama until it was turned over to the Alabama Department of Archives and History where it is stored in a sealed metal case. The document is written on 26 sheets of parchment, each attached to the sheet below it by blue grosgrain silk ribbon and sealing wax. The last two pages of the 31 1/2 foot-long document contain the ordinance adopting the Constitution and the signatures of the President of the Convention, the 43 delegates, and the Secretary of the Convention.

DELEGATES TO THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION
HELD AT HUNTSVILLE


President: John Williams Walker (Madison)
Secretary: John Campbell (Madison)
Doorkeeper: Daniel Rather (Madison)

Autauga: James Jackson
Baldwin: Harry Toulmin
Blount: Isaac Brown, John Brown, Gabriel Hanby
Cahawba (now Bibb): Littlepage Sims
Clarke: Reuben Saffold, James Magoffin
Conecuh: Samuel Cook
Cotaco (now Morgan): Melkijah Vaughn, Thomas D. Crabb
Dallas: William Rufus King
Franklin: Richard Ellis, William Metcalf
Lauderdale: Hugh McVay
Lawrence: Arthur Francis Hopkins, Daniel Wright
Limestone: Thomas Bibb, Beverly Hughes, Nicholas Davis
Madison: Clement C. Clay, John Leigh Townes, Henry Chambers, Samuel Mead, Henry Minor, Gabriel Moore, John Williams Walker, John M. Taylor
Marengo: Washington Thompson
Marion: John D. Terrell
Mobile: Samuel H. Garrow
Monroe: John Murphy, John Watkins, James Pickens, Thomas Wiggins
Montgomery: John Dandridge Bibb, James W. Armstrong
St. Clair: David Conner
Shelby: George Phillips, Thomas A. Rodgers
Tuscaloosa: Marmaduke Williams, John L. Tindal
Washington: Israel Pickens, Henry Hitchcock

Back to Alabama Day Suggested Activities


Updated: January 2, 2008
http://www.archives.alabama.gov/alday/timeline.html
Alabama Department of Archives & History
624 Washington Avenue
Montgomery, Alabama 36130-0100
Phone: (334) 242-4435
E-Mail:debbie.pendleton@archives.alabama.gov