AHC: Maximum Number of American States

Get America to the maximum number of states. Try to contain it as OTL USA size, but dont be afraid to add a few that was never American.
 
I'm sorry, I understand that you want it in OTL area but I have to say, fuck Canada over in the 1812 war. Or how about the confederates win and have a bunch of unique events happen producing a ton of states. Oh and sorry about my language.
 
Somehow start a political norm of big states petitioning to be divided when the exceed a certain population, in order to ensure adequate Senate representation.

One way to get the ball rolling might be to have Texas start to exercise its special pre-approval to petition itself during the 1850s, with the intention of regaining parity in the Senate between free states and slave state. Anti-slavery northerners might respond by starting a movement to split New York, Pennsylvania, or Ohio in half.
 
Get America to the maximum number of states. Try to contain it as OTL USA size, but dont be afraid to add a few that was never American.

What if, in the early American period, you get a form of government where representation is purely by states, not by population? A different Constitution or a souped-up Articles of Confederation, for instance.

And then, as the larger states are tired of constantly being outvoted, some state where there is a Whiskey Rebellion type tension between the coast and the hinterland decides to split into several parts. Because of how the Constitution is worded they don't have to get Congressional approval--or assume that they do get Congressional approval for whatever reason (maybe because the small state faction is feeling beleaguered be claims that the system of representation is unfair, so they decide to jump on the state-splitting bandwagon). Most states ultimately follow suit and eventually the precedent is established in westward expansion that states are small and/or that they split up as their populations increase. Although there is lots of variation, by now the custom is pretty well established that a state should have around .5 to 1.5 million people. There are several hundred states. There are also lots more multi-state compacts than in OTL. The states of Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, Staten, Long Island, and Monmouth, for example, have formed a City Compact that is effectively a complete government.
 
Somehow start a political norm of big states petitioning to be divided when the exceed a certain population, in order to ensure adequate Senate representation.

One way to get the ball rolling might be to have Texas start to exercise its special pre-approval to petition itself during the 1850s, with the intention of regaining parity in the Senate between free states and slave state. Anti-slavery northerners might respond by starting a movement to split New York, Pennsylvania, or Ohio in half.
I like this. Could you expand a bit, please?
 
OK, starting with a POD prior to the division of the old north west and south (probably a POD between 1800 and 1810), were it becomes a political norm of big states petitioning to be divided when the exceed a certain population or economic & cultural difference, without the US gaining too much extra territory than in OTL, and still making some logical geographic and population sense I was able to get 85 states (without including Alaska).

Here is the map. And I reckon under these rules you could probably end up with a few more divisions. But this works for me. Anyone wants to have a go at naming them?

Note: NYC & Long Island are their own separate states. So New York got divided into 3. Other divisions from the original colonies included New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maine, and Virginia. I reckon Cuba, Texas and California didn't start out as divided, while Nicaragua was also likely split in two for the building of the canal.

85 States.jpg
 
I like this. Could you expand a bit, please?

The joint resolution that annexed Texas and admitted it as a state included a provision that Texas could divide itself into up to five states:
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
Texas had a fairly low population in the 1850s and 1860s, but enough to make multiple states (212,000 in 1850, and 604,000 in 1860, with about 30,000 being the usual minimum population for statehood (enough to form a full Congressional district)).

One scenario in which they might have exercised it would be the debate leading up to the Compromise of 1850. Up until the admittance of California as a free state, there had been an equal number of slave states and free states, giving slave states parity with free states in the Senate. When California petitioned for admittance, there weren't any good candidates for admission as slave states, so Northern Senators wound up giving a number of concessions in the Compromise of 1850 in exchange for the South acquiessing to the loss of Senate parity.

An alternative outcome might have been for parity to be maintained by dividing Texas into two states, perhaps explicitly as part of the Compromise, or perhaps in retaliation for passing the California enabling act with little or no Southern support. The issue of division of Texas did come up in the OTL compromise negotiations, but more in terms of splitting off unsettle sections of Texas to expand New Mexico Territory rather than forming new states (in exchange for Federal assumption of Texas debt).

If Texas did divide itself to maintain parity with California, it would likely then feel the need to divide itself again to match Minnesota (admitted OTL in 1858), and again to match Oregon (admitted OTL in 1859).

At some point, Northerners will get tired of this and attempt to return the favor, particularly if parity in the Senate were to skew slavery policy in a more pro-slavery direction. Pennsylvania, New York, and Ohio each had more than double the population of the largest Southern state, making it hard to argue against partition if the state legislature concurred. Judging from the Senators each state appointed in 1856, Republicans had a majority in the legislatures of all three state by then IOTL, making partition petitions at least vaguely plausible. They'd probably be vetoed or voted down in the Senate (with the help of the VP's tiebreaking vote), but once Republicans captured the White House, it'd be hard to stop the partitions from going through.

Once a norm develops of dividing existing states to obtain additional representation in the Senate, the political impetus to continue such divisions is going to be fairly strong. Taken to its logical extreme, there'd be one state for every one or two congressional districts, since the average population of a congressional district is traditionally the threshold population for admitting a territory as a state.
 
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