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Colorado Day, the official state holiday that isn't an official state holiday, was Friday. Or maybe it's tomorrow. Either way, it's just as well that we don't observe it, since the celebration might attract the attention of those pernicious revisionist historians, and President Bush has already warned us about them.
Colorado became a state on Aug. 1, 1876, when President Ulysses S. Grant issued an official proclamation. For many years, state offices were closed on Aug. 1, but when the General Assembly made Martin Luther King Day in January a state holiday, Colorado Day was removed.
Somewhere along the way it moved to the first Monday in August, which makes it Aug. 4 this year. So far as I can tell, the only relevant action by the state government is free admission to state parks tomorrow.
Because Colorado joined the union in 1876, a century
after the Declaration of Independence, we became the
Centennial State.
But Colorado was supposed to
become a state in 1864.
The Civil War was raging that summer. The Confederacy, despite its defeats at Vicksburg and Gettysburg in 1863, was still fighting hard. On the eastern front, the Army of the Potomac suffered immense casualties as the Army of Northern Virginia contested every foot of the route to Richmond. To the west, Union Gen. William T. Sherman appeared to be bogged down on his way to Atlanta.
Thus President Abraham Lincoln feared that a war-weary public would elect someone else that November.
What to do? There were three territories out west which could be made into reliably Republican states, and if they could be admitted into the Union in time for the 1864 election, then Lincoln would be much more likely to be re-elected.
Congress duly passed the enabling acts for their statehood early in 1864. If these territories would write and approve state constitutions, and then if Congress approved their constitutions, they could become states.
Those three territories were Nebraska, Nevada and Colorado. Nebraska's constitutional convention voted against statehood, so that didn't happen until 1867.
The minimum population required for statehood then was 127,381, and Nevada had about 25,000 residents in 1864. Their convention extended so close to the deadline that the constitution had to be telegraphed, at tremendous expense, to Washington. But it got there in time; Nevada became a state just before the election, on Oct. 31, 1864 -- three more electoral votes for Lincoln.
By then he didn't need them -- Sherman had taken Atlanta and the political tides ran in Lincoln's favor.
In Colorado, there was major opposition to statehood
because the territory teemed with draft-dodgers, and the
Union draft laws were enforced in states, but not in
territories. The 1864 constitutional convention was
dominated by the Denver Crowd,
which wanted to send
John M. Chivington to Congress. He was the hero of the
Battle of Glorieta Pass in 1862 when Colorado volunteers
repelled Texas invaders, and he hadn't yet marched on Sand
Creek.
Colorado statehood was defeated 4,672-1,520 in a Sept. 13 special election.
Colorado tried for statehood again in 1866, but President Andrew Johnson vetoed it. In this there was a connection between Colorado statehood and the career of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birthday replaced Colorado Day as a state holiday.
In 1865, Colorado's territorial voters had rejected a proposal to allow African-Americans to vote; this discrimination was part of the proposed constitution. So pioneer black leaders in Colorado -- among them Barney Ford and William Hardin -- lobbied for a presidential veto, and got it in 1866. A year later, Johnson vetoed another statehood bill.
In 1876, the Republican Party feared a close presidential election, which meant it was time to admit another Republican state. Colorado was admitted in time for the election, but Coloradans didn't get to vote in it. The three Republican electors were chosen by the legislature, and they enabled Rutherford B. Hayes to defeat Samuel J. Tilden by one electoral vote.
Until 2000, that was the only time Colorado made the slightest difference in a presidential election.
Colorado still responds. When GOP operatives called from Washington earlier this year and complained that some elections were too close in Colorado. our Republicans obeyed quickly with new congressional district boundaries. As it had since 1876, Colorado did its job for the party.
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