the United States; these granted certain lands held by the Federal government to the new state, notably those set aside for public schools, and provided that 5% of the proceeds from sale of Federal lands would fund creations of roads to and through Ohio. The convention met from November 1 to 29; it agreed to form a state, accepted the several land-use proposals, and wrote the Ohio Constitution of 1802, which went into force without submission to popular vote. On February 19, 1803 Congress passed an act "providing for the execution of the laws of the United States in the State of Ohio" (Sess. 2, ch. 7, ). This act did not purport to admit the state, but declared that Ohio, by the formation of its constitution in pursuance of the act of April 30, 1802, "has become one of the United States of America." Neither act, however, set a formal date of statehood. An official statehood date for Ohio was not set until 1953, when the 83rd Congress passed a Joint resolution "for admitting the State of Ohio into the Union", () which designated March 1, 1803, as that date. Significance and growth Along with the extensively discussed topic of internal improvements, the entry of Ohio into the Union in 1803 raised the issue of whether the United States or Ohio should control the public lands in the territory. In a major precedent, the older states retained for the Union full sovereignty over these lands but agreed to allocate five percent of the net proceeds of land sales in Ohio for building roads to and through the state. The Enabling Act of 1802 specifically stated that the five-percent portion should, be applied to the laying out and making public roads, leading from the navigable waters emptying into the Atlantic, to the Ohio, to the said State, and through the same, such roads to be laid out under the authority of Congress, with the consent of the several States through which the road shall pass. This statement within the Enabling Act of 1802 foreshadowed the Cumberland Road, which was built to fulfill the promise to use a portion of the money accruing from the sale of public lands in Ohio in order to connect that young state with Atlantic waters; the road would be approved in 1806 and would later extend nearly to the Mississippi River. In the act of