US State Density Requirement

How do you think a population density requirement for state admission would have affected the history of America?

Would this have delayed the sectional crisis?
Would this have made more environmentally and economically efficient states?
Would this have made less corrupt, more responsive governments?
 
I suspect this would lead to a lot of tiny states built around urban areas carved out whenever one party or another achieved enough power in congress to railroad them through. The likelyhood with a set up like that is that big city style machine politics predominates and the effect on corruption isn't that great one way or another.

Rural citizens being basically disenfranchised seems like it'd cause more issues than not.
 
I suspect this would lead to a lot of tiny states built around urban areas carved out whenever one party or another achieved enough power in congress to railroad them through. The likelyhood with a set up like that is that big city style machine politics predominates and the effect on corruption isn't that great one way or another.

Rural citizens being basically disenfranchised seems like it'd cause more issues than not.
What if it was min pop and min area?
 
Not specifically this, but an interesting POD would be if the people running the USA in the 1780s and 1790s got alot more hard-ass over what where even then small states. Not only not changing the Constitution to suit the objections of Delaware, but pretty much forcing Delaware to join Pennsylvania, refusing to admit Rhode Island unless they joined either Massachusetts or Connecticut, and resolving the dispute over Vermont by putting the area definitely in either New Hampshire or New York. Then not only raising the population requirement to form new states, but requiring some degree of approval from the existing states.
 

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Not specifically this, but an interesting POD would be if the people running the USA in the 1780s and 1790s got alot more hard-ass over what where even then small states. Not only not changing the Constitution to suit the objections of Delaware, but pretty much forcing Delaware to join Pennsylvania, refusing to admit Rhode Island unless they joined either Massachusetts or Connecticut, and resolving the dispute over Vermont by putting the area definitely in either New Hampshire or New York. Then not only raising the population requirement to form new states, but requiring some degree of approval from the existing states.

I'd have to imagine Deleware and Rhode Island wouldn't even join the Union if this were to happen, in OTL when Rhode Island was threatened with having their exports tariffed, the state still only voted to join the Union by two votes. And if the Union was too large-state hardlined, then most of the small states likely would not join the Union at all. If the alt-Constitution still went through, the small states may confederate or form something akin to the Hanseatic League.
 
Not specifically this, but an interesting POD would be if the people running the USA in the 1780s and 1790s got alot more hard-ass over what where even then small states. Not only not changing the Constitution to suit the objections of Delaware, but pretty much forcing Delaware to join Pennsylvania, refusing to admit Rhode Island unless they joined either Massachusetts or Connecticut, and resolving the dispute over Vermont by putting the area definitely in either New Hampshire or New York. Then not only raising the population requirement to form new states, but requiring some degree of approval from the existing states.

Vermont had more people than Georgia in 1790, and even more importantly for that era, far more free whites. It would be plenty viable as a state by any standard, since by 1810 it passed New Hampshire in population.

Population density seems odd. It is the population size of a territory should matter, no?

Definitely, when you consider the fact that urbanisation levels were quite low, especially in the South. I guess there's always Frederick Jackson Turner's frontier thesis where over a certain population density, the land ceases to be a "frontier". According to Turner, this was around 1890, although in recent decades, rural depopulation in the Plains has caused the "frontier" to return.
 
I'd have to imagine Deleware and Rhode Island wouldn't even join the Union if this were to happen, in OTL when Rhode Island was threatened with having their exports tariffed, the state still only voted to join the Union by two votes. And if the Union was too large-state hardlined, then most of the small states likely would not join the Union at all. If the alt-Constitution still went through, the small states may confederate or form something akin to the Hanseatic League.


Which could have been quite dangerous as only two states, MA and PA, opposed the compromise over representation - and MA changed its mind on the final vote.

So you might have ended up with a Union containing only one nonslaveholding state - virtually a North-South split - turning the large/small state division into a sectional one which could all too easily have become permanent.
 
Re Milkstone's comments, Akhil Amar argued that the provisions in the 1787 constitution favoring small states were really there to protect the interests of the slaveholding states, the "need" to accommodate the small states is therefore something of a historical myth.

My point in these discussions has been that the USA would have in fact gotten along fine without either Delaware or Rhode Island, and in fact managed without Rhode Island until 1790. I would go further and argue they really just needed Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, which would have formed a contiguous block of territory and which would have been joined by smaller states later anyway for economic reasons.

However, accommodating the interests of the slaveholding states was another matter since that is where the putative federal government would be getting more of its tax revenue.

Amar's argument was that every state having two Senators, and voting by state for the President (with a bonus two electoral votes not dependent on population) helps the slaveholding states because it then becomes less of an issue that a large portion of their adult male population -a majority in the case of South Carolina- are not citizens.
 
Re Milkstone's comments, Akhil Amar argued that the provisions in the 1787 constitution favoring small states were really there to protect the interests of the slaveholding states, the "need" to accommodate the small states is therefore something of a historical myth.

My point in these discussions has been that the USA would have in fact gotten along fine without either Delaware or Rhode Island, and in fact managed without Rhode Island until 1790. I would go further and argue they really just needed Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, which would have formed a contiguous block of territory and which would have been joined by smaller states later anyway for economic reasons.

However, accommodating the interests of the slaveholding states was another matter since that is where the putative federal government would be getting more of its tax revenue.

Amar's argument was that every state having two Senators, and voting by state for the President (with a bonus two electoral votes not dependent on population) helps the slaveholding states because it then becomes less of an issue that a large portion of their adult male population -a majority in the case of South Carolina- are not citizens.

Which is weird, considering that in the actual convention itself, northern states like New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Connecticut, favored the small state position, and Virginia, the biggest slave holding state, favored the large state position. And I think one of the Carolinas supported the big state position--I'm not sure if it was North or South Carolina. And there was nothing in the convention itself that stated the reason for the small state position was to protect slaveholding.

And it wasn't reluctance to talk openly about it either. After all, slavery was discussed and voted upon in discussion on representation of population and taxes (resulting in the 3/5th compromise), the 20 year slave trade ban, and the fugitive slave clause.

But never was there anything about Senate and the Electoral College about slavery. We have the journal of the proceedings and the debate of the Convention, and it's not a myth about the need to accomodate the small state's interest. It actually happened. There was actually a battle between the small states and large states, and as far I can tell, that's all there is to it.

It might be logical in Amar's mind, but there's no evidence in the Convention that the Southern and Northern delegates discussed the small state large state battle on free and slave terms. Rather, it's best to think of it really a large state small state battle, period.
 
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Which is weird, considering that in the actual convention itself, northern states like New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Connecticut, favored the small state position, and Virginia, the biggest slave holding state, favored the large state position. And I think one of the Carolinas supported the big state position--I'm not sure if it was North or South Carolina. And there was nothing in the convention itself that stated the reason for the small state position was to protect slaveholding.

And it wasn't reluctance to talk openly about it either. After all, slavery was discussed and voted upon in discussion on representation of population and taxes (resulting in the 3/5th compromise), the 20 year slave trade ban, and the fugitive slave clause.

But never was there anything about Senate and the Electoral College about slavery. We have the journal of the proceedings and the debate of the Convention, and it's not a myth about the need to accomodate the small state's interest. It actually happened. There was actually a battle between the small states and large states, and as far I can tell, that's all there is to it.

It might be logical in Amar's mind, but there's no evidence in the Convention that the Southern and Northern delegates discussed the small state large state battle on free and slave terms. Rather, it's best to think of it really a large state small state battle, period.

I remember Amar making a persuasive argument for his position but it has been awhile since I read his History of the Constitution so I can't recount it. I don't remember him relying on accounts of the debates at the convention, however.
 
Re Milkstone's comments, Akhil Amar argued that the provisions in the 1787 constitution favoring small states were really there to protect the interests of the slaveholding states, the "need" to accommodate the small states is therefore something of a historical myth.

I can't imagine what he was blathering about.

The Compromise was agreed by five states to four. The nays were cast by PA, VA, SC and GA, ie by three slave states and only one non slave. IOW the states which held out against giving each state an equal vote in the Senate contained the vast majority of America's slave population.

I would go further and argue they really just needed Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, which would have formed a contiguous block of territory and which would have been joined by smaller states later anyway for economic reasons.

Why do you include New York? Until it withdrew from the Convention (less than a week before the final vote on the Compromise) it had consistently voted with the small states on this issue. Keep in mind that in 1787 most of the present state was still wilderness, and its population was smaller than either MA or PA, and only slightly greater than CT. It had the potential to be a big state, but wasn't there yet.

However, accommodating the interests of the slaveholding states was another matter since that is where the putative federal government would be getting more of its tax revenue.

I think someone must be muddling the Compromise on the Senate with the three-fifths rule for the HoR. The two things were entirely separate.
 
They could be grand-fathered in
I thought that was assumed. So yeah the same states all get grandfathered in, but territorial divisions have to reach a certain level of development before entry, and the idea is to have some urbanization occur. Maybe this can delay the entry of places like Mississippi, or Nevada.
 
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