US · constitutions
U.S. Const. art. IV, § 3
[1] New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.
[2] The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.
History
This text of the Constitution follows the engrossed copy signed by Gen. Washington and the deputies from 12 States. The small superior figures preceding the paragraphs designate clauses, and were not in the original and have no reference to footnotes. Ratification was completed on June 21, 1788. (H. Doc. 110-50, note 1.) Dated by the completion of ratification. The same note records March 4, 1789 as the day fixed for commencing the operations of Government under it. Text as printed in H. Doc. 110-50, THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA As Amended (Government Publishing Office; issued 2007-07-25, GovInfo CDOC-110hdoc50). Clause figures are printed here as [1], [2], … at the start of each clause.
Provenance
- Source
- www.govinfo.gov
- Retrieved
- 2026-09-24
- Edition
- h-doc-110-50
- Content hash
b432cfac945b41c5816e18c7e5217faf62fcb1044da7bf49cf8234b2083d22e0
The link goes to the issuing authority’s own document — the one we read to produce this record. Where a source publishes whole titles rather than sections, your browser may need a moment to jump to the provision.
Unofficial copy of government-published law, reproduced from official sources with full provenance. Not an official publication; verify against official sources before relying on it in a filing. Records in the 'guidance' corpus, and only that corpus, are sub-regulatory (interpretive guidelines, survey procedures) and are not binding law. Validity bounds follow each jurisdiction's declared temporalBasis.