AHC: The U.S. kicks a state out

2 things to keep in mind about Nevada formation. One it was formed because the goverment did not want it to be part of Utah due to questions about Mormon loyally to the US. 2 California was considered to be too big to began with but due to the gold rush the goverment went with the boundaries California set for itself.

The thing is Nevada is pretty Mormon anyway.
 

samcster94

Banned
You'd need to amend the Constitution. That means a state would have to sufficiently antagonize 2/3 of both houses of Congress and 3/4 of the other states. AND since that requires bipartisan support, the state would have to have minimal value to either party or be such a pain that its preferred party is willing to give up congressional seats and electoral votes.

I have a hard time seeing that scenario play out. Vermont is adjacent to a foreign country and small enough that the Democrats don't need it, but they aren't obnoxious.

Could always put Bugs Bunny on the job:

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That is why I put this scenario in Reconstruction, and to a lesser extent: either a crisis under Washington, a loss of a foreign war(esp. 1812) with territory lost, or (even less likely) a severe no FDR Depression{where something like the Dakotas merging is done for money}.
 
Texas and Hawaii would be the obvious. Have Hawaii brought in as a state earlier, say 1908. Have the Royals sue, calling the coup illegal that created the republic and then brought Hawaii into the states.

Supreme Court rules in their favor. The President is someone who would not pull a Jackson.
 
How is this different from the reconstruction era, when the states were put under military districts until they created new constitutions and approved of the "civil war amendments"? How was that constitutional? The reconquered states didn't have senators in congress during that time.

The legal understanding of Reconstruction was that the rebel states never actually left the Union. They all remained legally part of the Union during and after the war, it was simply that their legitimate governments had been usurped by illegitimate (read: disloyal) ones. Basically, the act of seceding invalidated the state government doing it. This absence of a legitimate state government obligated the US to take action to restore a loyal state government. It also made it impossible to give those states the representation they were constitutionally entitled to, because there was no legitimate state government which could exercise it. Once the federal government was satisfied that the new governments were loyal, they were readmitted and their representation was restored.
 
The legal understanding of Reconstruction was that the rebel states never actually left the Union. They all remained legally part of the Union during and after the war, it was simply that their legitimate governments had been usurped by illegitimate (read: disloyal) ones. Basically, the act of seceding invalidated the state government doing it. This absence of a legitimate state government obligated the US to take action to restore a loyal state government. It also made it impossible to give those states the representation they were constitutionally entitled to, because there was no legitimate state government which could exercise it. Once the federal government was satisfied that the new governments were loyal, they were readmitted and their representation was restored.
White v. Texas seems to uphold that idea too.
 
Considering how long Utah was delayed in being admitted to the Union due to its polygamous dominant faith (Mormonism), I'm wondering if perhaps the US Congress may have considered throwing them back out (and/or degrading into a Federally administrated territory) had they gotten wind that there WERE Mormons who continued practicing it even after it was officially abolished by the Latter Saints (and that little if any legal consequences happened to them for many decades thereafter).
 

samcster94

Banned
Turtledove's unrealistic universe(the one with Jake Featherston, who is Hitler) apparently did that due to Mormon terrorists.
Considering how long Utah was delayed in being admitted to the Union due to its polygamous dominant faith (Mormonism), I'm wondering if perhaps the US Congress may have considered throwing them back out (and/or degrading into a Federally administrated territory) had they gotten wind that there WERE Mormons who continued practicing it even after it was officially abolished by the Latter Saints (and that little if any legal consequences happened to them for many decades thereafter).
 
BTW, Madison actually used the fact that a state cannot be kicked out of the Union as an argument against the right of secession. If any state can secede, why can't all the states but one secede and then all get back together again, excluding the one state they dislike? "...if one State can at will withdraw from the others, the others can at will withdraw from her, and turn her, nolentem, volentem, out of the union. Until of late, there is not a State that would have abhorred such a doctrine more than South Carolina, or more dreaded an application of it to herself..." http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/letter-to-nicholas-trist/
 

Saphroneth

Banned
I think the likely one is more that a state is absorbed into another one, and that Nevada's quite a likely candidate - it almost literally exists because of an election stunt by the Republicans in 1864, being done in such a hurry they had to telegraph the State Constitution to get everything done in time, and if things broke differently so the Republicans lost in 1864 I could see that one being quickly revoked.
 
I think the likely one is more that a state is absorbed into another one, and that Nevada's quite a likely candidate - it almost literally exists because of an election stunt by the Republicans in 1864, being done in such a hurry they had to telegraph the State Constitution to get everything done in time, and if things broke differently so the Republicans lost in 1864 I could see that one being quickly revoked.

That happened more or less, to Colorado in 1876 and those 3 electoral votes actually put the winner over the top.
 
Laughs in South Carolinian

But seriously, that could do it. Jackson's presidency was early enough that the Constitution was still very much in flux, and it would be within Jackson's temperament to rewrite the Constitution so that Calhoun couldn't secede because he would already have been kicked out.
 
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Turtledove's unrealistic universe(the one with Jake Featherston, who is Hitler) apparently did that due to Mormon terrorists.

I think, IIRC, that the state of Utah rose up in rebellion, and was placed under military occupation until a new, "loyal" government could be established.
 
I think the easiest way to do this would be a state with an Apartheid-esque government, say the United States at some point conquers a territory with a large native population (Haiti, Taiwan, Walkeragua, a better run Liberia all come to mind) it gets enough white people to become a state. This new ruling class is incredibly insecure and slowly but surely implements the sort of racial codes that George Wallace would feel are heavy handed. Protesters and eventually elected politicians try to reel this state in but are stymied by the Supreme Court, this comes to a head when the President and Congress decide the kick out this troublesome territory so that they can have a free hand to deal with its rebels and government as they see fit.
 
I think, IIRC, that the state of Utah rose up in rebellion, and was placed under military occupation until a new, "loyal" government could be established.

Turtledove is an idiot like Stirling how those small minded uncreative minds got published with their implausible fiction is beyond me. He obviously never came to Utah or met a Mormon. Mormons would never do that, they're insanely patriotic, if you can't tell from my name its how I was raised. #personal experience.
 
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Turtledove is an idiot like Stirling how those small minded uncreative minds got published with their implausible fiction is beyond me. He obviously never came to Utah or met a Mormon. Mormons would never do that, they're insanely patriotic, if you can't tell from my name its how I was raised. #personal experience.

From what little I know of church history, in the early days of Utah, this wasn't necessarily the case. They had been driven out of places further east, but had also participated in the massacre of a wagon train going to California and there was one moment where the leadership almost came to blows with the army in the late 1850s.
 
From what little I know of church history, in the early days of Utah, this wasn't necessarily the case. They had been driven out of places further east, but had also participated in the massacre of a wagon train going to California and there was one moment where the leadership almost came to blows with the army in the late 1850s.

Right. I know Mormons now wouldn't act like that, but they were mistreated so badly early on that the fled outside the United States to Utah. In Turtledove's TL 191, that mistreatment continues, worsening the relationship between the church and the federal government.

It may or may not be the most plausible thing, but I think it was within the realm of possibility given the right circumstances.
 

samcster94

Banned
Right. I know Mormons now wouldn't act like that, but they were mistreated so badly early on that the fled outside the United States to Utah. In Turtledove's TL 191, that mistreatment continues, worsening the relationship between the church and the federal government.

It may or may not be the most plausible thing, but I think it was within the realm of possibility given the right circumstances.
Exactly. A Northern Ireland that reformed a bit by the 60's, and Paisley ends up dead in a car accident, would probably not end up violent(and the OTL conflict would be a bit of a stretch to someone in that universe).
 
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