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> For example, why are North Dakota and South Dakota separate states? Because the Republicans at the time wanted 2 states that would vote Republican. > If the

• marcell 9y ago
  This seems like a bit of a troll? You haven't given any substantial reason for why North/South Dakota makes sense, while North/South California doesn't, except that "Republicans... wanted 2 states that would vote Republican", which obviously is not a legit reason. If it were, we would split North Dakota into 100 Dakota's so that it would give 200 Republican votes in the senate. Also: > Yes, as someone from North Dakota, you're being rather stupendously ignorant of the midwest and the differences between North and South Dakota. And North and South California are massively different, yet lo-and-behold they are the same state. Even more different is central vs. costal California.
  • mitchty 9y ago
    > This seems like a bit of a troll? Umm, no, thats the accepted reason why the territory was split in two instead of becoming a state outright. From Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakota_Territory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakota_Territory because apparently one must link history or be called a troll. > Admission of new western states was a party political battleground with each party looking at how the proposed new states were likely to vote. At the beginning of 1888, the Democrats under president Grover Cleveland proposed that the four territories of Montana, New Mexico, Dakota and Washington should be admitted together. The first two were expected to vote Democratic and the latter two were expected to vote Republican so this was seen as a compromise acceptable to both parties. However, the Republicans won majorities in Congress and the Senate later that year. To head off the possibility that Congress might only admit Republican territories to statehood, the Democrats agreed to a less favorable deal in which Dakota was divided in two and New Mexico was left out altogether. Cleveland signed it into law on February 22, 1889 and the territories could become states in nine months time after that. However, incoming Republican president Benjamin Harrison had a problem with South Dakota; most of the territory was Sioux reservation land and the state would not be viable unless much of this land became available to settlers > And North and South California are massively different, yet lo-and-behold they are the same state. Yet they're the same state today, and North and South Dakota are not. Are you proposing we merge these lesser states together and allow California to be the one state to have separations due primarily to population? Just so that it is more "fair" for Californian Senate inputs? The reason for the senate being 2 per state was to allow each state equal voting ability amongst states so that populated states couldn't easily override less populated states.
    • marcell 9y ago
      > Are you proposing we merge these lesser states together and allow California to be the one state to have separations due primarily to population? You're ignoring my overall point. The concept of "states" doesn't make sense in the way it did when the country was formed. The 13 colonies were actually separate states, with separate governments and economies that agreed to join together to form a single state/country. However, as you pointed out, the process of creating states became political. An example (as you showed) North/South Dakota were split for political reasons, to achieve a certain voting outcome. The criteria being used to separate them is a political one, not something based on separate economic structures, or separate governments, or some other notion of what a "state" is. This shows that the notion of a "state" has changed since the late 1700's. Some current "states" are the result of political calculations, where as the original 13 states were separate entities in some other sense. > Are you proposing we merge these lesser states together and allow California to be the one state to have separations due primarily to population? I'm saying the entire concept of a "Senate" with 2 reps for each "state" doesn't make sense today. It's an outdated concept from a different reality. The Senate does have other useful properties, of course, but the current division of states doesn't make sense.