More/less states of the USA.

The US never gets a new constitution and falls apart over the articles of confederation. A rump Pennsylvania+New Jersey+Delaware (and maybe Maryland too) calls itself the USA. It does expand eastwards to Ohio but ultimately wont have more than 6 states.
 
The US never gets a new constitution and falls apart over the articles of confederation. A rump Pennsylvania+New Jersey+Delaware (and maybe Maryland too) calls itself the USA. It does expand eastwards to Ohio but ultimately wont have more than 6 states.

Firstly that date is when the Constitution was ratified and secondly I said in OTL borders.
 
Fewer states:

-Maine stays part of Massachusetts.

-Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia retain their western lands up to the Mississippi, rather than ceding them to the General Government (which allowed the area to be formed into new states.

-Virginia succesfully claims the larger part of the Northwest Territory. If there is a part not incorporated into Virginia, it becomes part of New York or some other state as a "western reserve".

-Florida, when it enters the Union, remains one, rather than ceding its western lands.

-With the eastern states thus remaining bigger, new territory annexed in the future is also carved into bigger states. Texas remains undivided, Alta California enters as a single state, etc. etc.


More states:

-The Jeffersonian plan to divide the western lands of the originial thirteen states is adopted.

-Furthermore, the state of Westsylvania is allowed to form.

-With the eastern states thus being typically smaller, new territory annexed in the future is also carved into smaller states. Texas is divided into several small states, OTL California is split into North california and South California, etc. etc.
 

Rstone4

Banned
Part of the Missouri Compromise, Maine does NOT become a state, instead a state is carved out of a huge chunk of western lands north of Missouri. the Compromise of 1850 is tweeked that California is a free state, but New Mexico (including Arizona, Utah, colorado) is a slave state.

1861, Half of Kansas secedes with the CSA, and in 1865 the South Kansas state remains a state but North Kansas included Nebraska anyways.


bingo fewer states.
 
Fewer states: The Albany Plan works out very well and the United States is never born, instead America becomes a smaller commonwealth with a number of Republics out west and larger 'states' being carved out of the Louisiana much like how Canada has huge states.

More states: Some sort of succession clause in the Constitution that allows states to split up and reform much easier. States that break away are very unlikely to reform with their original parent state, mainly because why would they? So they can have less representation per-capita?

Under this system cities would likely split away from rural counties aggressively, especially out west. West Colorado, South Nevada/Las Vegas and Washington/Oregon would lose their eastern portions.

I imagine this would cause a crises, with some cities trying to form a state out of each neighborhood. So eventually this system would get reformed no matter what.
 
Let's assume state borders get set like county borders, how many days ride on horseback it takes to reach the state capital. That's a reasonable rule especially for the difficulty of travel overland in all of the states until the railroad networks are fully in place about 1893.

So big states become several to many states:
Texas: Galveston, San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, Lubbock, Amarillo, El Paso, etc. all become state capitals.
Kansas: Kansas City and Wichita capitals
Minnesota: Duluth and another are added.
Wisconsin: Northern Wisc.'s added.
Illinois: Chicago in the North, Cairo in the South
North Dakota: Fargo, Bismarck, and Red River Valley Capitals
Montana: Glasgow, Miles City, Billings, Havre, Great Falls, Bozeman, Missoula, Helena, Kalispel, Libby, capitals
South Dakota: Sioux Falls, Pierre, and Rapid City capitals
Nebraska: Lincoln, Omaha, and 1-2 more
Oklahoma: 3-4
New Mexico: 3-4
Colorado: 4-5
Utah: 4-5
Nevada: 5-6
California: San Francisco, Sacramento, Redding, Los Angeles, Fresno, San Diego, Imperial Valley, Sierra Nevadas, and probably 1-2 more capitals
Washington: split E&W so Spokane is a new capital
Oregon: split E&W for an Eastern Oregon capital as well
Michigan: Upper Peninsula as a separate state
Louisiana: N & South split so New Orleans and Baton Rouge
probably Arkansas splits E&W
Indiana splits N & S
Alaska splits at least into 4-6 despite the tiny populations so Juneau, Anchorage, Aleutians, W. Yukon/Dawson, etc.

Getting to 80-90 states is easy when you look at regional economies, climates, transportation routes, regional centers/cities, shared priorities among the populations etc.. Most states have different separations and conflicts than just rural vs. urban or biggest city vs. state capital, indicating either considerable ignorance in the state's border setting or intentional balancing of regions that will always disagree substantially and often about priorities and resource allocation (Indian reservations were designed that way intentionally in the same period so it'd be odd if that wasn't part of the state border-drawing calculations in DC's USGS offices too.
 
A separate UP is likely with Michigan gaining the Toledo Strip.

An eastern and western Oklahoma. Maybe.

Also, what about splitting off Eastern TN and Nortern Alabama after the civil war.
 
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