What are the requirements for statehood?

Answer:

In 1787 the Congress of the Confederation of the United States passed the Northwest Ordinance which established what is now Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota as Northwest Territory and established the population required for statehood as 60,000 people. The ordinance was affirmed again by Congress under the current US Constitution in 1789. In 1802 the Enabling Act was passed telling Ohio how to become a state. A delegate would be elected for every 1,200 to go to a state convention which would determine whether or not they wanted to be a state and if so to decide how delegates would be chosen to write a constitution. The constitution must be "republican, and not repugnant to the ordinance of the thirteenth of July, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven, between the original States and the people and States of the territory northwest of the river Ohio." Congress would then vote on whether or not to accept the constitution and the statehood of Ohio.