Five Federal constitutional/political documents, enacted into law by the Congress and the President of the United States during the four decades from 1936 through 1976, expanded the self-governing authority of the people of the Virgin Islands. They were the: 1. Organic Act of 1936 2. Revised Organic Act of 1954 3. Elective Governor Act of 1968 4. Congressional Delegate Act of 1972 5. Constitutional Authorization Act of 1976 This commentary capsulizes the general historical climate in which these documents evolved and then notes the most significant provisions and effects of each document. The Historical Context The forty years from the mid-1930s through the mid-1970s were decades of tremendous change and political development in the Caribbean and other parts of the politically colonized areas of the world. During the 1930s the mass of the population in most colonies lived in abject poverty and possessed very little, if any, political power. By the 1970s economic conditions in many of those places had been bettered by greater educational opportunity and the development of tourism, mineral, or industrial sectors. The masses had gained greater political rights, and some former colonies had even acquired complete political independence. The experiences of the United States Virgin Islands, which had been transferred from 245 years of Danish rule to United States sovereignty in 1917, were fairly typical of the period. During the early 1930s, the Islands' economic conditions went from bad to worse as a result of the Great Depression. A population decline, which the Islands had been experiencing for several decades, continued as residents left in search of greater employment opportunities on the United States mainland, Puerto Rico, and elsewhere.1 Similarly, the political conditions of the early 1930s were completely counter to what had been expected of American rule. The holdover of the Danish Colonial Law of 1906, with its property or income requirements for voting, continued the disfranchisement of most of the Virgin Islands' population for the first two decades of American sovereignty. In the mid-1930s, fewer than 1500 persons were eligible to vote in a population of over 20,000.2 Continuing campaigns, both in the Islands and on the mainland, for the extension of political rights finally led to the enactment by the Congress of the United States, and the signing by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 22, 1936, of the first American constitutional document for the Virgin Islands. The document, employing the traditional United States term for an act of Congress which grants powers of government to a territory, is known as the Organic Act of 1936.