Talk Elections

By the way, this is allowed...  California is a unique case... it can split up into several states if it desires to unlike other states.  

No, it's Texas that can do that/

No it should stay one state although if it broke up it could help the republicans if they broke it up a certain way.
 
 
 


What!!!
 
 
 
 

REALLY!!! Is that a special clause in the US Constitution that the rest of us uneducated plebians are not aware of?

California can too...  I heard Texas could but I wasn't sure.

I'm pretty sure it's just Texas

Oh but you should have known... being you went to Princeton and all... ahahaha!  

Isn't Texas the state with that ability?

I didn't know California was also in that situation.  Problem with California is that it would be hard to make mulitiple states that will all still vote for the democrats. That's why i vote for two, less risk involved for national elections, although Gore would have won if we made California into four Dem leaning states .... hmmm ;)

I'm pretty sure it's both.

CTGuy,

I would like to see some proof from you of this and how California could go about doing it. Is it related to the initial compromise when California became a state?

It's nice that you would like to pursue knowledge...  Why dont you go to the Princeton Library and look it up.

Nope, I think it's just Texas that can be broken down into four states based on the agreement surrounding its initial admittance. I think the same does NOT apply to California. I notice you said, "I think" as well...so you're not sure of your facts?

I think it's healthy that you are trying to put information into your brain for once...  The Princeton Library might be a nice place to try to read up on this more.

CTGuy,

Oh, so you are wrong then.

The two of yall will argue over anything [ctguy and markdel]

Is it wrong for me to request you check the library of your Alma Mater?  Your brain is like a muscle, if you don't flex it enough it simply shrivels up and atrophies.

Harry,

He should back up a statement that he made. I believe you were correct, that rule applies to Texas but not California, but I could be wrong. He's not sure either, but doesn't have the decency to admit it.

And if you're trying to compare the way I treat other posters with the way HE treats other posters, then you have not been reading enough threads the past few days.

Article IV, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution
New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new states 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.

according to the constitution if Texas wanted to be divided the U.S. congress would have to approve it and any state could break into two or more

9Iron,

Texas was a special case, I'll be back in a minute or two with posts explaining why CTGuy was wrong and California cannot split up into several states. Just had to do some quick research to confirm I was right.

Apparently it can, I was just wrong that other states can too.

Here is a copy of the actual text of the Compromise of 1850 that admitted California to the Union as a SINGLE STATE. Next post will be a copy of the document which admitted Texas with the provision that Texas could break into 4 independent states.

http://www.historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=668

Compromise of 1850
It being desirable, for the peace, concord, and harmony of the Union of these States, to settle and adjust amicably all existing questions of controversy between them arising out of the institution of slavery upon a fair, equitable and just basis: therefore,

1. Resolved, That California, with suitable boundaries, ought, upon her application to be admitted as one of the States of this Union, without the imposition by Congress of any restriction in respect to the exclusion or introduction of slavery within those boundaries.

2. Resolved, That as slavery does not exist by law, and is not likely to be introduced into any of the territory acquired by the United States from the republic of Mexico, it is inexpedient for Congress to provide by law either for its introduction into, or exclusion from, any part of the said territory; and that appropriate territorial governments ought to be established by Congress in all of the said territory, not assigned as the boundaries of the proposed State of California, without the adoption of any restriction or condition on the subject of slavery.

3. Resolved, That the western boundary of the State of Texas ought to be fixed on the Rio del Norte, commencing one marine league from its mouth, and running up that river to the southern line of New Mexico; thence with that line eastwardly, and so continuing in the same direction to the line as established between the United States and Spain, excluding any portion of New Mexico, whether lying on the east or west of that river.

4. Resolved, That it be proposed to the State of Texas, that the United States will provide for the payment of all that portion of the legitimate and bona fide public debt of that State contracted prior to its annexation to the United States, and for which the duties on foreign imports were pledged by the said State to its creditors, not exceeding the sum of dollars, in consideration of the said duties so pledged having been no longer applicable to that object after the said annexation, but having thenceforward become payable to the United States; and upon the condition, also, that the said State of Texas shall, by some solemn and authentic act of her legislature or of a convention, relinquish to the United States any claim which it has to any part of New Mexico.

5. Resolved, That it is inexpedient to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia whilst that institution continues to exist in the State of Maryland, without the consent of that State, without the consent of the people of the District, and without just compensation to the owners of slaves within the District.

6. But, resolved, That it is expedient to prohibit, within the District, the slave trade in slaves brought into it from States or places beyond the limits of the District, either to be sold therein as merchandise, or to be transported to other markets without the District of Columbia.

7. Resolved, That more effectual provision ought to be made by law, according to the requirement of the constitution, for the restitution and delivery of persons bound to service or labor in any State, who may escape into any other State or Territory in the Union. And,

8. Resolved, That Congress has no power to promote or obstruct the trade in slaves between the slaveholding States; but that the admission or exclusion of slaves brought from one into another of them, depends exclusively upon their own particular laws.

That's proof on California. I can't seem to find the Texas document itself, but here's a good explanation of why Texas was allowed to divide into four other states:

http://www.snopes.com/history/american/texas.asp

Claim:   A clause in the document annexing Texas to the United States allowed for Texas to be divided into five different states.
Status:   True.

Origins:   After several years of contentious debate, in  
1845 the United States' various political factions finally reached enough of a consensus to agree that the benefits of annexing Texas (nominally an independent republic ever since it had been wrested from Mexico after the decisive 1836 battle at San Jacinto, although neither Texas nor Mexico ever accepted the treaties signed a few weeks later) outweighed the pitfalls. As T.R. Fehrenbach noted in his history of Texas, the nascent republic was ill-suited to maintain itself as a sovereign nation, and the presence of such a tenuous political entity in the midst of North America posed a threat to the ambitions and interests of the United States:

Sam Houston's republic was a struggling frontier community of less than forty thousand people; it was a series of plantations and farms carved out of the Southern forests along the river bottoms extending up from the Gulf, with an utterly colonial economy. Most Texans were subsistence farmers, with a little barter on the side. The planters exported their cotton against imported goods; the balance of trade was yet adverse. The largest towns were frontier outposts with mud streets and at most a few thousand assorted people. There was no money economy, nor any money. There were no banks or improved roads or organized schools. There was no industry — everything from pins to powder had to be imported from the United States. Over this sprawling community the government was only loosely organized . . . real government consisted primarily of sheriffs and justices of the peace. Texas barely approached the basic requirements for statehood.

Texas blocked American expansion to the Pacific, and a weak, unstable nation on American borders invited penetration by still-ambitious European powers. The Monroe Doctrine could not by any stretch of the imagination keep British influence out, if Britain chose to fish in Texas waters.
The primary stumbling block to Texas' annexation by the U.S. was that the act was almost certain to provoke war with Mexico, an eventuality which came to pass with the outbreak of the Mexican-American War in 1846. Nonetheless, although the U.S. Senate rejected an annexation treaty with Texas in 1844, it passed an annexation bill on 26 February 1845. Another contentious issue regarding the annexation of Texas by the United States remained, however: slavery.

The admission of Texas to the Union posed the potential for upsetting the delicate political balance between free states and slave states. Not  only would the annexation of Texas add another slave state to the U.S., but that state would be a vast chunk of territory — nearly four times as large as the then-largest state, Missouri — which would extend the slaveholding portion of the U.S. far beyond its current western boundary. Moreover, the northern portion of Texas intruded beyond the 36°30'N line of latitude which had been established as the demarcation point between free territory and slave territory by the 1820 Missouri Compromise (although the provisions of that compromise technically applied only to "all that territory ceded by France to the United States, under the name of Louisiana" and therefore did not encompass Texas). For their part, some southerners wanted to be able to carve additional slave states out of the huge Texas territory in order to counter the admission of free states and thereby maintain the balance of power between free and slave states in the Senate. The slavery issue (at the time, 90% of Texans were neither slaves nor slaveholders) was addressed in the Joint Resolution for Annexing Texas to the United States, approved by Congress on 1 March 1845, which included a provision allowing Texas to be sub-divided into up to four more states with slavery being banned in states carved out of Texas territory north of the Missouri Compromise line and left up to popular sovereignty in states formed south of the line:

New States of convenient size not exceeding four in number, in addition to said State of Texas and having sufficient population, may, hereafter by the consent of said State, be formed out of the territory thereof, which shall be entitled to admission under the provisions of the Federal Constitution; and such states as may be formed out of the territory lying south of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes north latitude, commonly known as the Missouri Compromise Line, shall be admitted into the Union, with or without slavery, as the people of each State, asking admission shall desire; and in such State or States as shall be formed out of said territory, north of said Missouri Compromise Line, slavery, or involuntary servitude (except for crime) shall be prohibited.
Texas was officially admitted to the Union when President James K. Polk signed the Joint Resolution to Admit Texas as a State on 29 December 1845.

The most likely possibility that Texas might be split into more than one state was headed off in 1850. California (recently acquired by the U.S in the war with Mexico) had approved a free-state constitution and petitioned Congress for statehood; meanwhile, Texans were engaged in a border dispute, claiming that their territory included half of present-day New Mexico and part of Colorado. Had the boundary issue been decided in favor of Texas, southerners might have pushed to create a second state out of the larger Texas territory in order to balance California's admission as a free state. The series of congressional bills collectively known as the Compromise of 1850 (temporarily) settled these troublesome issues by admitting California as a free state and giving Texas $10 million to relinquish its territorial claims, while the pro-slavery section supported these proposals in exchange for the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act.

The issue of the 36°30'N slavery demarcation line soon became moot when the Missouri Compromise was effectively repealed by the 1854 passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and explicitly ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court's 1857 Dred Scott decision. Any real likelihood that Texas might be carved up into additional states was ended when Texas seceded from the Union in 1861, joined the side of the Confederacy in the Civil War, and was not formally re-admitted to the U.S. until after the 1865 ratification of the 13th amendment which abolished slavery throughout the jurisdiction of the United States.

Although the provisions of the Texas Annexation document allowing for the creation of four additional states are popularly regarded as a unique curiosity today, they were largely superfluous. Article IV, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution already specifically provided for the formation of new states through the junction or division of existing states:

New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new states 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.
Another Texas-related legend holds that the Texans negotiated an annexation treaty which reserved to them the right to secede from the Union without the consent of the U.S. Congress, but the terms of Texas' annexation contain no such provision.

As usual, you were right on target...California CANNOT be broken into several independent states, but Texas can...like I said all along.

CTGuy,

Come on, find "a pair" and admit you were wrong...

My only concern is how to split Kahlifornya. I mean, it would be North and South- but you'll still get liberal votes. Northern California will be liberal because of the bay area and coastal counties, and southern california will be liberal because of LA. I mean, perhaps Southern California would occasionally swing right, but Northern California will always go left. So I don't see the point.

The issue has kinda been desided, but it is true that California COULD be split-up wit congressional approval.  However, Texas can split any time it damn well pleases, because that was part of the aggreement it made when it joined the union.

Dispite what the Constitution might say, states can split up.

Maine from Mass.
Vermont from New York
Kentucky and West Virginia from Virginia
Tennessee from North Carolina
Alabama from Georgia

It's funny...I always remembered Texas could split into four states, not five...
Is there an established procedure how Texas would go about splitting itself up? Seeing Texas go would sure be nice :)

NO, never.  I was not wrong, it can split up with congressional approval, I admitted I was wrong about it being limited to California already.  If you weren't too busy gloating you would have noticed that.

The point is, it can't just "split up if it so desires" (look at your own quote). It's no big deal, you probably confused Texas with California. I mean, the West Texas desert and the Sonora desert in California probably look pretty much alike, and they are both big states, so there's nothing to be ashamed of, right?

I already admitted that...  This coming from MarkDel who is pretending to be a Princeton grad and cant admit when he's wrong even when it is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is...

Lewis,

If Texas split into five states, you would end up with at least 3 Republican states and perhaps as many as 4 Republican states. This would increase the Republican advantage in the Senate, so I agree with you, let's split up Texas...LOL

Not ashamed, you IDIOT, it's shamed. :D

LOL

the thing is though, you are the only one who doubts MarkDel, many people doubt YOU!

I've been advocating something like this for a long time - CA is about 40% very conservative GOP, but they basically have no voice as a permanent minority.  

Don't try and sound like this has anything to do with pronciples. :) What if it was the other way around? ;)

Texas Annexation Resolution, 1845 (http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/texan01.htm):

"New states, of convenient size, not exceeding four in number, in addition to said state of Texas, and having sufficient population, may hereafter, by the consent of said state, be formed out of the territory thereof, which shall be entitled to admission under the provisions of the federal constitution. And such states as may be formed out of that portion of said territory lying south of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes north latitude, commonly known as the Missouri compromise line, shall be admitted into the Union with or without slavery, as the people of each state asking admission may desire. And in such state or states as shall be formed out of said territory north of said Missouri compromise line, slavery, or involuntary servitude, (except for crime,) shall be prohibited."