Enabling act is a law that authorizes, or enables, individuals or groups to do things they would otherwise have no power to do. The United States Congress passed enabling acts to allow territories to set up the machinery for becoming states. These acts defined the boundaries of the new states. They also gave the people of the territories the right to elect delegates, hold a constitutional convention, and draw up a state constitution. A separate enabling act had to be passed for each territory before it became a state.
