N.Y. Times: Let's get rid of the states

That ain't it. Two states have been admitted to the union since the people of Puerto Rico -- who, historically, haven't shown any strong inclination toward statehood -- were granted full citizenship.

 

No new states will be admitted because the two leading candidates, D.C. and Puerto Rico, would be overwhelmingly Democratic and the Republicans in Congress just would never consider it. Quant is right, Puerto Ricans have historically been torn between their status quo, statehood and a relatively small independence movement, but their debt crisis may alter that equation.

 

Revisionist history to suggest there was consensus regarding how sovereign states should be.

 

Right. The consensus manifested in the ratification of the Constitution (and, in a way, solidified in the Civil War) centered on how much less sovereign they would be (or, alternatively, how much of their sovereignty they would cede to the federal government).

 

I've wondered whether many of the anti-federalists would recoil regarding how much power state and local governments now wield.

 

Divide Florida, Georgia gets the North quarter, the pan handle to Alabama.
Abolish New Jersey and divide it between eastern Pa and So NY.
Add Mass to Conn and RI. Eastern NY to Vermont/NH/Maine.
Western Pa and West Va and Eastern Ohio.

 

Can you imagine how the anti-federalists would be treated today? How their ideas/concerns would be derided? Oh, wait, you're a regular on sj.com ... of course you can imagine that.

 

The anti-federalists got everything their way for a few years with the Articles of Confederation.

It didn't work.

 

Wait a minute. I thought there were 57 states?

 

57 Varieties

 

That's been tried (in part) before.

The Year We Almost Lost the Panhandle - Tallahassee Magazine - November-December 2015

 

Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama can secede at any point they like.