Hypothetical New States

[Roadgeek Adam]

NYC up to the Bear Mountain Bridge, all of North Jersey from 195 and the Turnpike on west, and Connecticut to Bridgeport as a new state. South Jersey and Delaware merge to form the new state of Lenape.

Lenape would be better for the N, not S

[papaT10932]

The U.S. Constitution requires any new territory applying for statehood have, at the minimum, the same population of the least populated state in the union. Right now, I think the least populated state is either Wyoming or Alaska... so any new state must have (at least) the population of which ever state is lower.

[shoptb1]

The U.S. Constitution requires any new territory applying for statehood have, at the minimum, the same population of the least populated state in the union. Right now, I think the least populated state is either Wyoming or Alaska... so any new state must have (at least) the population of which ever state is lower.

What if the creation of a new state out of an existing state causes the existing state to fall below the minimum?  hmmm....

[yanksfan6129]

NYC up to the Bear Mountain Bridge, all of North Jersey from 195 and the Turnpike on west, and Connecticut to Bridgeport as a new state. South Jersey and Delaware merge to form the new state of Lenape.

Lenape would be better for the N, not S

Doesn't look like that to me. Lenape would be fine for south Jersey/Delaware

[Bickendan]

The U.S. Constitution requires any new territory applying for statehood have, at the minimum, the same population of the least populated state in the union. Right now, I think the least populated state is either Wyoming or Alaska... so any new state must have (at least) the population of which ever state is lower.

IIRC, the minimum population for a territory applying for statehood was 60,000.

[Roadgeek Adam]

The U.S. Constitution requires any new territory applying for statehood have, at the minimum, the same population of the least populated state in the union. Right now, I think the least populated state is either Wyoming or Alaska... so any new state must have (at least) the population of which ever state is lower.

Wyoming is the 51st (DC has higher)

[mgk920]

The U.S. Constitution requires any new territory applying for statehood have, at the minimum, the same population of the least populated state in the union. Right now, I think the least populated state is either Wyoming or Alaska... so any new state must have (at least) the population of which ever state is lower.

IIRC, the minimum population for a territory applying for statehood was 60,000.

What was Nevada's population upon statehood?

*ALL* that the USA's Constitution says about admitting new states is:

"Article. IV.
Section. 3. New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress."

There is *NO* minimum population threshold nor anything else, it is totally a political decision of Congress.

Mike

[mightyace]

The U.S. Constitution requires any new territory applying for statehood have, at the minimum, the same population of the least populated state in the union. Right now, I think the least populated state is either Wyoming or Alaska... so any new state must have (at least) the population of which ever state is lower.

IIRC, the minimum population for a territory applying for statehood was 60,000.

IIRC The 60,000 figure was the figure in the law regulating the original Northwest Territory (now Ohio, MI, IN, IL, WI and part of MN)

[Chris]

What was Nevada's population upon statehood?

Admission to the union: 1864

1860 census: 7,000
1870 census: 43,000

(the state didn't grow significantly above 40,000 mark until the 1910 census)

[SP Cook]

The history of Nevada's statehood is based on the Civil War.  The Republicans rushed Nevada to statehood in time for the 1864 election, since it was a certain 3 Electorial votes for Lincoln.  It was not ready, and when the mines played out, remained a dry and unpopulated place.  But for this, it is likely that it would have come into the union near the time of Arizona.  One can even make a case for it to have still been a territory to this day.  It was expanded, the only state to have major territorial additions after statehood in 1866 and in 1868.  It was a failed state, unable to support a legitimate sized population.

It was a bankrupt state until it discovered legal gambling in the 1930s.  Even up to the 1980s, it was a small state, in congressional terms an "at-large" state, where the state gets one congressman.  To this day the "rest of Nevada" distict is the largest non-at-large district in the country.

[rawmustard]

I figure I'll bump this thread again since the Free Press has an article mentioning new discussion of U.P. secession. I don't think I ever realized just how close it actually was (defeated by one vote in the 70s according to the article).

[Stephane Dumas]

I figure I'll bump this thread again since the Free Press has an article mentioning new discussion of U.P. secession. I don't think I ever realized just how close it actually was (defeated by one vote in the 70s according to the article).

Maybe the UP should be back to Wisconsin. I quoted the best part.

Looking to Wisconsin

Scott Sult, owner of New York Deli, said he was born and raised in Marquette. He also travels frequently for business to metro Detroit, which is where his wife is from.

Although he said he does not believe a new state makes sense, he noted that residents in parts of the U.P. tend look to Wisconsin for such things as major shopping.

"A lot of people say that Green Bay is the capital of the U.P.," he said.

Many in the U.P. live closer to Wisconsin than lower Michigan, said Charles Bergdahl, another Marquette County commissioner. They can get to Milwaukee, Minneapolis and even Chicago faster than to Detroit. They cheer for the Green Bay Packers instead of the Detroit Lions. And the majority, Bergdahl said, are more likely to do business with Wisconsin than the Lower Peninsula.

[mgk920]

I see oodles of lost-looking Michigan-plated cars here in the Appleton area, especially around the Fox River Mall area and the downtown Appleton Performing Arts Center and nightlife district, all the time, so the anecdote on dem Yoopers traveling to Wisconsin for shopping and entertainment purposes is certainly true.

OTOH, if Da YooPee were to be transferred to Wisconsin, several of their most major place names would have to be changed - For example, there are already cities and counties in Wisconsin named 'Menomonie' and 'Marquette', highways M-28, M-35 and many others would need renumbering, etc.  OTOH, they could probably keep their '906' telephone area code and 498xx and 499xx USPS ZIP Codes.

Mike

[Jordanah1]

....wisconsin got robed by every state it touches except iowa, illinois took northern illinois (from the tip of lake michigan including chicagoland and rockford-north) michigan of course got the U.P. and minnesota got the land east of the mississippi river, including its current capitol St. Paul, all that got taken from wisconsin...that being said chicago wouldnt be as big as it is if it werent part of illinois, because the canal from the illinois river to lake michigan wouldnt have happened...

[kkt]

....wisconsin got robed by every state it touches except iowa, illinois took northern illinois (from the tip of lake michigan including chicagoland and rockford-north) michigan of course got the U.P. and minnesota got the land east of the mississippi river, including its current capitol St. Paul, all that got taken from wisconsin...that being said chicago wouldnt be as big as it is if it werent part of illinois, because the canal from the illinois river to lake michigan wouldnt have happened...

You must mean "taken from" in some special sense, because once a state is admitted its boundaries are fixed, with the special situation of West Virginia.  Taken from what we once thought we might get?

[Brandon]

....wisconsin got robed by every state it touches except iowa, illinois took northern illinois (from the tip of lake michigan including chicagoland and rockford-north) michigan of course got the U.P. and minnesota got the land east of the mississippi river, including its current capitol St. Paul, all that got taken from wisconsin...that being said chicago wouldnt be as big as it is if it werent part of illinois, because the canal from the illinois river to lake michigan wouldnt have happened...

The rails still would've come to Chicago, and it still would be as big.  The rails built Chicago, not the I&M Canal.  However, it would be more of a tri-state area than it is now as the line between what was Wisconsin and what was originally Illinois is about 151st Street, and would cut right through the middle of downtown Plainfield.  I'd still be living in Illinois, but Hobsini would be in Wisconsin.

[Alps]

....wisconsin got robed by every state it touches except iowa, illinois took northern illinois (from the tip of lake michigan including chicagoland and rockford-north) michigan of course got the U.P. and minnesota got the land east of the mississippi river, including its current capitol St. Paul, all that got taken from wisconsin...that being said chicago wouldnt be as big as it is if it werent part of illinois, because the canal from the illinois river to lake michigan wouldnt have happened...

You must mean "taken from" in some special sense, because once a state is admitted its boundaries are fixed, with the special situation of West Virginia.  Taken from what we once thought we might get?

And the situations of the original 13, given that their claims went at least to the Mississippi if not to the Pacific. (Maine and Vermont being even specialer cases.) I was reading up on how Michigan was robbed by Ohio, but the one that burns me is Maine being robbed by Canada due to British duplicity. New Jersey's northern boundary could have been farther north, Connecticut could have had Enfield, most of the crooks in every state's line are due to survey errors...

[mgk920]

....wisconsin got robed by every state it touches except iowa, illinois took northern illinois (from the tip of lake michigan including chicagoland and rockford-north) michigan of course got the U.P. and minnesota got the land east of the mississippi river, including its current capitol St. Paul, all that got taken from wisconsin...that being said chicago wouldnt be as big as it is if it werent part of illinois, because the canal from the illinois river to lake michigan wouldnt have happened...

You must mean "taken from" in some special sense, because once a state is admitted its boundaries are fixed, with the special situation of West Virginia.  Taken from what we once thought we might get?

And the situations of the original 13, given that their claims went at least to the Mississippi if not to the Pacific. (Maine and Vermont being even specialer cases.) I was reading up on how Michigan was robbed by Ohio, but the one that burns me is Maine being robbed by Canada due to British duplicity. New Jersey's northern boundary could have been farther north, Connecticut could have had Enfield, most of the crooks in every state's line are due to survey errors...

Well, maybe it wasn't such a bad idea for the then Wisconsin Territory to lose what is now Chicagoland....

<DUCKS and RUNS!!!!>



OTOH, I saw an article a few weeks ago (no link handy offhand) where parts of the North Carolina-South Carolina state line are being resurveyed and the trouble that it is causing for residents, businesses and property owners along the way.  One business that is right tight to the line, a combination gas station and fireworks stand, may be forced out of business because the corrected state line would put it in North Carolina, where most fireworks are illegal, instead of in its current South Carolina, where pretty much anything that is 'Class C' is perfectly OK.

Mike

[mgk920]

Additionally, ISTR that the Illinois-Wisconsin state line was defined to be at exactly 42 degrees 30 minutes north.  The line that was surveyed at the time, and is still the modern-day recognized state line, varies from the actual 42.5N by as much as about 1 km, with the greatest error being near Lake Michigan.  If it were to be correctly resurveyed today, for example, most of modern-day downtown Beloit, WI to about three blocks northward from the present state line would then be in Illinois.  OTOH, a portion of Illinois farther west to the Mississippi River would then be in Wisconsin.

Mike

[Alps]

OTOH, I saw an article a few weeks ago (no link handy offhand) where parts of the North Carolina-South Carolina state line are being resurveyed and the trouble that it is causing for residents, businesses and property owners along the way.  One business that is right tight to the line, a combination gas station and fireworks stand, may be forced out of business because the corrected state line would put it in North Carolina, where most fireworks are illegal, instead of in its current South Carolina, where pretty much anything that is 'Class C' is perfectly OK.

Mike

This has come up in other recent resurveyings, and I believe what ultimately happens is that the borders stay where they are because Congress established that whatever borders existed at X point in time were the borders period, regardless of what the technical definitions should have been.

[bulldog1979]

I figure I'll bump this thread again since the Free Press has an article mentioning new discussion of U.P. secession. I don't think I ever realized just how close it actually was (defeated by one vote in the 70s according to the article).

As a native Yooper (Mike, spell it right like we do, it's "the UP"), I have mixed feelings about secession. If we had the originally proposed state borders, the basically the three easternmost counties of the UP would be Michigan, and the rest would have been in another state. At one point, Michigan Territory extended over most of the upper Great Lakes region. Brown, Milwaukee, Crawford, and Iowa counties in Wisconsin, plus Des Moines and Dubuque counties in Iowa, were created by the Michigan Territory government, and still exist to this day in their current states. At the time Michigan petitioned for statehood, they only wanted a certain area, and accepted the remainder of what is the UP as compensation for the loss of Toledo.

On an emotional level, the UP is a de facto separate state from Lower Michigan, even though it isn't that way in a de jure sense. Half of our local TV stations are from Green Bay. Unlike the trolls, we tend to measure snowfalls by the foot, not the inch. We're Yoopers first, Michiganders second, and root for the Packers and other teams from neighboring states disproportionately. It takes a worse storm for our schools to be cancelled during the winter, and unless 5' falls overnight, we don't declare disasters very often.

The recent frustrations surfacing are some very real issues related to the role of the state in local governance at the county and municipal levels. The UP has a third of the state's land area, but only 299,200 or so of the state's 9.8 million people. At various points, the UP sends more tax revenues to Lansing than the state sends back. I know many people up here who would be very mad if the state bails out Detroit with the taxpayers' money just on principle because UP money would be involved.

State policies have limited school revenues yet increased what the districts must do with their funding. The school district in Newberry is the largest east of the Mississippi River and expends thousands of dollars a day just to operate its bus fleet, yet receives the same state funding per student as smaller districts downstate. Marquette County is larger than the Rhode Island with 1,272 miles of primary and secondary county roads to maintain.

The worst thing that ever happened to the UP on a political level is term limits, which has meant the loss of potential seniority in the Legislature. There will never be another Dominic Jacobetti, who served from January 1955 until his death just after the election in November 1994, to champion our needs and desires in Lansing. Only one governor in the state's history has come from the UP, Chase Osborn, who served a single two-year term, 1911—13. The last high-ranking politician from the UP was Lt. Gov. Connie Binsfeld, originally from the Munising area, who served during Gov. Engler's first two terms in the 1990s. Without the population, and we like it this way up here, we don't have the clout in a capitol 235 miles from our border.

Were they to vote tomorrow, I'd vote for secession on the emotional level. The roadgeek in me would be excited to see what a UPDOT could do to set up a new numbering scheme with new highway markers and such. My logical side would appreciate the fact that local politicians could be reacting to very different local needs than the more urbanized south of the state. But it probably won't happen. All is not lost though. We still have our own state fair while the one in Detroit hasn't been staged in a few years now. Our schools have separate state tournaments in several sports. We still have more national parks, more national forests, both of the state's mountain ranges, most of the state's waterfalls and more mineral and timer resources.

[NE2]

The rails still would've come to Chicago, and it still would be as big.  The rails built Chicago, not the I&M Canal.  However, it would be more of a tri-state area than it is now as the line between what was Wisconsin and what was originally Illinois is about 151st Street, and would cut right through the middle of downtown Plainfield.  I'd still be living in Illinois, but Hobsini would be in Wisconsin.

The I&M Canal is responsible for the location of Chicago and the way all the railroads from the east have to curve north to reach it.

[vdeane]

And the situations of the original 13, given that their claims went at least to the Mississippi if not to the Pacific. (Maine and Vermont being even specialer cases.) I was reading up on how Michigan was robbed by Ohio, but the one that burns me is Maine being robbed by Canada due to British duplicity. New Jersey's northern boundary could have been farther north, Connecticut could have had Enfield, most of the crooks in every state's line are due to survey errors...

There's also weirdness around the Mississippi River, since the borders are set as the Mississippi ran when the states were formed, yet the river has changed course since.

[oscar]

There's also weirdness around the Mississippi River, since the borders are set as the Mississippi ran when the states were formed, yet the river has changed course since.

I think the international law rules on river boundaries would likely apply here:  a river's gradually changing course through "accretion" (erosion of one bank, building up land on the other) shifts a river-based boundary, but "avulsion" (sudden change in course) doesn't.  The Mississippi has lots of "avulsive" changes as the river cut a new channel to shortcut a river bend, which means the border stayed where it was.  I don't know if there are places where the border has moved slightly through "accretion".

Of course, states could fix this problem (with Congress' concurrence) by swapping their cut-off lands as needed to move the border back to the river, at least until the river moves again.  The U.S. and Mexico did something like that with the disputed Chamizal tract in El Paso/Ciudad Juarez, where the U.S. ceded back to Mexico land it arguably gained when the Rio Grande shifted course, and both countries lined the river in concrete to make sure it would never move again. 

[Stephane Dumas]

And the situations of the original 13, given that their claims went at least to the Mississippi if not to the Pacific. (Maine and Vermont being even specialer cases.) I was reading up on how Michigan was robbed by Ohio, but the one that burns me is Maine being robbed by Canada due to British duplicity. New Jersey's northern boundary could have been farther north, Connecticut could have had Enfield, most of the crooks in every state's line are due to survey errors...

Here, north of the Border, we got the felling then we've been robbed the Aroostock Valley and part of the Oregon Territory. ^^;

OTOH, if Da YooPee were to be transferred to Wisconsin, several of their most major place names would have to be changed - For example, there are already cities and counties in Wisconsin named 'Menomonie' and 'Marquette', highways M-28, M-35 and many others would need renumbering, etc.  OTOH, they could probably keep their '906' telephone area code and 498xx and 499xx USPS ZIP Codes.

I could imagine the following how about Menomonie-on-Lake-Michigan or Marquette-on-Lake-Superior or Marquette-on-the-Lake? (Then we got numerous Highland Park and Springfield in the U.S.