Later, when a territory asked to be admitted to the union as a new state, Congress, through what is called an "enabling act," empowered the people of the territory to choose a convention to frame a constitution which, when submitted to the voters and approved by them, became the fundamental law of the new state. In a number of cases, however, the people of the territory went ahead on their own initiative, and without the authority of an enabling act framed their constitution and asked to be admitted, and sometimes they were admitted as though they had acted under the authority of Congress. Whenever an existing state wishes to frame a new constitution for itself, the usual mode of procedure is for the legislature either to pass a resolution calling a convention, or to submit to the voters the question of the desirability of a new constitution. A resolution calling a convention usually requires an extraordinary majority of both houses of the legislature, two thirds of the members being the most common rule. =Ratification of New Constitutions.=--When the draft of the constitution has been completed by the convention, it is usually submitted to the voters of the state at a general or a special election, and if it is approved by a majority of those voting on the constitution, or (in some states) of those voting at the election, it supersedes the old constitution and goes into effect on a day prescribed. In some instances, however, new constitutions were not submitted to popular vote; instead, the convention assumed the right to put them into effect without popular approval. Of the twenty-five state constitutions adopted before the year 1801, only three were submitted to the voters for their approval, but as time passed the practice of giving the people an opportunity to approve or reject proposed constitutions became the rule. In the twenty years between 1890 and 1910 eight new constitutions were submitted to the people, and only five were put into force without popular ratification, namely, those of Mississippi (1890), South Carolina (1895), Delaware (1897), Louisiana (1898), and Virginia (1902).