How This State Entered The Union

Statehood is where constitutional structure meets regional history: the point where a place entered the Union as an equal state.

Admission To The Union

Virginia ratified the Constitution on June 25, 1788, becoming the tenth state and giving the new federal system one of its most important political anchors.

Path To Statehood

Its route ran from colony to revolutionary commonwealth and then into the new constitutional system through a contentious ratification debate that helped shape the federal bargain.

Why It Matters

Virginia matters because so much of the early republic depended on it: founding leadership, constitutional legitimacy, and the relationship between state power and national structure.