Yeah, it strikes me that in all of these discussions about federalism, states' rights, the Senate as protector of the small states, the filibuster, the Electora

Yeah, it strikes me that in all of these discussions about federalism, states' rights, the Senate as protector of the small states, the filibuster, the Electoral College, etc. is the implicit assumption that the number of states is fixed. But it isn't, or at least it wasn't for most of the nation's history. Even the number of states is more historical accident than grand design: Why are there two Dakotas instead of one? Why is the largest state (CA) over 68X larger than the smallest (WY)? Why do we have non-state territories that are larger than some states (PR is larger than 20 states!, DC is larger than 2)? It's all very arbitrary.