Enabling laws grant authority for certain actions. In the US, they allowed territories to become states. In Germany, the Enabling Act of 1933 gave Hitler dictatorial powers, leading to the Holocaust.
An enabling law is a law passed by a legislative body to grant authority for some type of action. Many constitutions state that such a body’s authorization is required for certain kinds of actions, including executive orders from national leaders or local government by citizens. The term “enabling act” has meant different things in different contexts: the two most common uses of the term refer to laws passed in the United States and Germany. In the United States, the term generally referred to acts of Congress that granted territories permission to form states. In Germany, it was the name of an act that granted leader Adolf Hitler the unchecked authority to pass laws.
In the United States, the Enabling Act of 1802 allowed a portion of the Northwest Territory to begin the transition to full statehood. The Northwest Territory initially had fewer than 60,000 residents and so was given territory status through the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. When the territory had its designated population in 1802, the United States Congress, a body that grants authority for the state, allowed the area to form a constitution. Upon ratification of its constitution, it became the state of Ohio. The legislation has been called an enabling act because it allowed residents of the Northwest Territory to organize and apply to join the United States on an equal footing with other states.
Similarly, the Enabling Acts of 1889 and 1910 allowed other territories to become states. North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Washington became states in November 1889 upon ratification of their state constitutions. Arizona and New Mexico were accepted in 1910. The Enabling Act of 1802 set the precedent for these later laws. When Hawaii and Alaska were admitted as states after World War II, these acts were no longer given the name “enabling.” In Germany at the time, an enabling law had a very different meaning.
The German parliament passed the enabling law of 1933 to give dictatorial powers to the leader Adolf Hitler. It was the next major legal measure that established his dictatorship after the Reichstag Fire Decree, which suspended many long-standing civil liberties and human rights laws. Hitler argued that he needed full and unchecked power to protect the German people and save society from destruction. Historians consider the Enabling Act of 1933 to be a pivotal moment in history that allowed Hitler to reshape German society, lead the country into World War I, and orchestrate the Holocaust. The act passed 441 votes to 94, although it was expected to last only four years, it was voted back into law three times between 1937 and 1944.
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