Governorship
Shortly after the inauguration of President William Howard Taft, Sloan was summoned to the White House. Governor Joseph Henry Kibbey, suspecting the reason for the summons, urged the judge to accept the governorship if it was offered to him. Sloan was reluctant to take the position, partially because of the low salary, but was convinced to accept. He took a short time to set his judicial affairs in order and was sworn in as governor in Phoenix on May 1, 1909.
At the time of Sloan becoming governor, common opinion was that Arizona would soon achieve statehood. The new governor echoed this view in his inaugural address by expressing his optimism for the quick passage of an enabling act for Arizona. Towards this end, Sloan joined with other territorial leaders to lobby for statehood. In October 1909, Sloan escorted President Taft on a tour of the territory that visited the Grand Canyon, Yuma, Phoenix, and Prescott before going to El Paso, Texas to meet Mexican President Porfirio Díaz. Territorial Delegate Ralph H. Cameron introduced a statehood bill into the U.S. House of Representatives in January 1910 and Sloan spent the spring of that year in Washington D. C. working toward passage of the bill. In June, Sloan was in Frankfort, Kentucky helping to organize a National Governors Association convention.
President Taft signed Arizona's enabling act into law on June 20, 1910. Sloan responded by issuing a proclamation calling for the election of 52 delegates to a constitutional convention on June 28, 1910. Another provision of the enabling act was that the 1908 elections would be the final elections authorized under territorial law. This had the effect of canceling the session of the territorial legislature scheduled for January 1911. It was assumed when the enabling act was passed that a state legislature would meet in 1911 to address issues previously handled by the territorial legislature. When final approval of Arizona's statehood was delayed, emergency provisions in the enabling act came into play granting Sloan the authority to authorize needed appropriations and levy taxes. As Sloan later expressed, "Congress conferred upon me a greater authority in the matter of taxation than was ever exercised by any other executive in the history of the country."
Arizona's constitutional convention ran from October 10 to December 9, 1910. Sloan was unhappy with the document produced by the convention, stating "that the Constitution which is being formed will never be adopted". Sloan's primary contention was that the state's executive branch should be more centralized with only the elected offices of attorney general and state auditor should be separate from that of the governor. He also advocated a term limit of four or six years for the office of governor. Despite these concerns, Sloan did not advocate delaying statehood, stating "Personally, while there are things in the Constitution which I deem unwise still I would, as a citizen be willing to accept them if this would bring statehood – hoping that whatever should prove by experience to be unwise would be corrected in the future by amendment."
Final approval of the state constitution was delayed in Congress and by President Taft over the issue of recall of judges. After this provision was removed from the document, approval came on August 22, 1911. Following this approval, Sloan called for a December 12, 1911 special election to choose state and congressional office holders. The Territorial Governor's final day in office came on February 14, 1912 when President Taft signed the resolution admitting Arizona to the Union and Sloan attended the swearing in ceremony for Governor George W. P. Hunt.
Read more about this topic: Richard Elihu Sloan