WI US States could buy and sell land from each other?
- Thread starter Zuvarq
- Start date
if left unregulated, it would be bad. most East coast provinces coudl dominate the USA, if it was legal from the start.
How exactly would it work? Considering that the states tended to release their territories as new states when they became populous enough, surely they would only exert influence up until the near-West became well-populated? Or are you saying that something like this encourage the states to not release their territories as they competed for control, resulting in long thin strip-states reaching across the continent?
I am not the person who originally brought up the issue, but it could very well mean several sea-to-sea strips.
Kaptin Kurk
Banned
It would change the entire history of the U.S., moreso the earlier it was established. Things would probably be normal until the Civil War, after wards the North would probably pull a South Africa on the South, buying up land forcibly until the Southern States were incoherent and jerrymandered / buy-ie-mandered into ireelevance.
Actually, most of the colonial charters gave the colonies rights to the entire latitudinal length of North America within a certain longitudinal range. I think.
Nope, you're right - only PA, DE, MD, NH, NJ, and RI had no border claims west, and I think PA based on OTL historical settlings could muscle up its own claims into central Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, etc. Jerseymen and Delawares could then likely join them in the vein Yankees from all New England just collectively settled wherever Massachusetts and Connecticut had claims.
Not the same idea at all – but another way to have states change territory with limited federal involvement. The idea derives from a 1980’s offshoot of the Sagebrush Rebellion that included the concept that counties, not states, were the essential building blocks of the American republic.
Keeping it simple, counties, or their equivalents (parishes in Louisiana, boroughs in Alaska) are geographic and most often political subdivisions of States that are unitary republics. They have no sovereignty of their own, but exercise delegated powers. Unlike the States, which retain that sovereignty not yielded to the national government.
But the offshoot of which I write saw counties as having a sovereignty of their own. I am not making up this; I went to a meeting in Winnemucca to learn about it.
The concept was based in counties being among the earliest units of local government. Often, in the 17th century, counties were one of the two units of government (the other being town or township) with which most folks actually had any dealings, and thus being the basic unit of government, on which all others were built (or from which, in the instance of town or township, derived). From that the argument was that in what is now the United States, counties were the basic units of sovereignty.
Looking at how counties and towns operated in early New England – such as during King Philip’s War, I can see how someone could seize upon this idea to advance an argument.
In the early colonies, some counties were formed by the colony government; others were formed locally, and then petitioned for recognition by the colony. On the far frontier, some would be formed, and would sometimes – not always – be recognized by the colony government. I am summarizing a lot. This contributed to the concept.
I have seen sieves that I think hold water better.
And arguments for fighting the “Feds” were built from there.
Suppose the counties were recognized to have an inherent sovereignty from the start. Each colony beginning with a county, with the inhabitants founding others as the settlements grew, under the authority of the Virginia Company, the Plymouth Company, the Massachusetts Bay Company, and the like, with the counties free to form associations within the scope of the company charters. In some ways, not unlike the contemporary Eastern Association, but for different purposes.
The associations would have criteria for accepting new associates.
New England, for example, might have associations of counties corresponding to Plymouth, Massachusetts,, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Hampshire under the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay Companies, and analogous to the our time line colonies of those names, but organized based on associations of counties founded by settler groups.
Presuming, for the sake of discussion, that the associations closely correspond to the colonies of our time line and the war for independence proceeds much the same, with the associations analogous to states, then the formation of new states (associations) might come about somewhat differently.
Some analogous version of the constitution of 1787/89 would presumably incorporate the residual sovereignty of counties and their associations, rather than states, with an individual county or an association functioning as a state does under our time line constitution. With provisions for formation of new counties, likely based on established practice
As settlers moved into the western territories, they would form counties for local governance. Those counties could then associate, as in the past, with existing counties. Or new counties could choose to form new associations. In the early years, the new counties formed by settlers in what we know as Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio could join their parent associations in Virginia or North Carolina, or could form new associations.
As the basic unit of governance and sovereignty, counties could associate, disassociate, and re-associate at will.
That could prove unmanageable, and the national constitution might include some minimum term for association, simply to make national government functional. To keep it simple, an initial association could be made at any time, but any disassociation or re-association would need to take place in the year after the national census, to be binding until the year after the next national census.
Associations (states) would build very differently. If a county decided its association (state) was not acting in its interest, it could join another association (state).
Possibly, the counties of an association need not form a contiguous territory.
As I said, not the same as states selling territory among themselves with limited federal involvement. A different mechanism for fluid state boundaries.
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Keeping it simple, counties, or their equivalents (parishes in Louisiana, boroughs in Alaska) are geographic and most often political subdivisions of States that are unitary republics. They have no sovereignty of their own, but exercise delegated powers. Unlike the States, which retain that sovereignty not yielded to the national government.
But the offshoot of which I write saw counties as having a sovereignty of their own. I am not making up this; I went to a meeting in Winnemucca to learn about it.
The concept was based in counties being among the earliest units of local government. Often, in the 17th century, counties were one of the two units of government (the other being town or township) with which most folks actually had any dealings, and thus being the basic unit of government, on which all others were built (or from which, in the instance of town or township, derived). From that the argument was that in what is now the United States, counties were the basic units of sovereignty.
Looking at how counties and towns operated in early New England – such as during King Philip’s War, I can see how someone could seize upon this idea to advance an argument.
In the early colonies, some counties were formed by the colony government; others were formed locally, and then petitioned for recognition by the colony. On the far frontier, some would be formed, and would sometimes – not always – be recognized by the colony government. I am summarizing a lot. This contributed to the concept.
I have seen sieves that I think hold water better.
And arguments for fighting the “Feds” were built from there.
Suppose the counties were recognized to have an inherent sovereignty from the start. Each colony beginning with a county, with the inhabitants founding others as the settlements grew, under the authority of the Virginia Company, the Plymouth Company, the Massachusetts Bay Company, and the like, with the counties free to form associations within the scope of the company charters. In some ways, not unlike the contemporary Eastern Association, but for different purposes.
The associations would have criteria for accepting new associates.
New England, for example, might have associations of counties corresponding to Plymouth, Massachusetts,, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Hampshire under the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay Companies, and analogous to the our time line colonies of those names, but organized based on associations of counties founded by settler groups.
Presuming, for the sake of discussion, that the associations closely correspond to the colonies of our time line and the war for independence proceeds much the same, with the associations analogous to states, then the formation of new states (associations) might come about somewhat differently.
Some analogous version of the constitution of 1787/89 would presumably incorporate the residual sovereignty of counties and their associations, rather than states, with an individual county or an association functioning as a state does under our time line constitution. With provisions for formation of new counties, likely based on established practice
As settlers moved into the western territories, they would form counties for local governance. Those counties could then associate, as in the past, with existing counties. Or new counties could choose to form new associations. In the early years, the new counties formed by settlers in what we know as Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio could join their parent associations in Virginia or North Carolina, or could form new associations.
As the basic unit of governance and sovereignty, counties could associate, disassociate, and re-associate at will.
That could prove unmanageable, and the national constitution might include some minimum term for association, simply to make national government functional. To keep it simple, an initial association could be made at any time, but any disassociation or re-association would need to take place in the year after the national census, to be binding until the year after the next national census.
Associations (states) would build very differently. If a county decided its association (state) was not acting in its interest, it could join another association (state).
Possibly, the counties of an association need not form a contiguous territory.
As I said, not the same as states selling territory among themselves with limited federal involvement. A different mechanism for fluid state boundaries.
.
I don't think it could work. You could end up with a few of the larger/richer states buying out the smaller ones - can you imagine an East Coast made up of just Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, New England and whichever dixie state came out on top? A West Coast wholly owned by California? A Southwest/Plains owned by Texas?
Is it altogether clear that they can't?
The Constitution (Art 4, S3) provides that "no new state shall be erected within the jurisdi9ction of another State, or by the conjunction 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". On the face of it, this would not seem to apply to a transfer of territory between two existing states, where no new state is created. Or is there some other clause that I have missed?
BlondieBC
Banned
You can, if one assumes both states are willing. So lets say Arkansas and Mississippi agreed to move the state line to the current river boundary, not the 1836 one for admin simplicity. It would then go to Congress, where it would pass. Why piss off the two states Congressional delegation for no gain? I am pretty sure there a few place in Arkansas that if you need the law, you call Mississippi since they are 10 minutes away, and Arkansas is well over an hour. Simple inertia is probably the reason no one has bothered moving the border.
Dirk_Pitt
Banned
You have a misconception. States never released territory as states in the way you discribed. During the 1780s-90s the landed states ceded their claims to the national government. These claims came from their colonial charters which gave them a sea-to-sea territory claims. Such states as New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland didn't have such sea-to-sea charters and thus no claims in the west. In the end I see that if these landed states didn't cede their territory the United States might have fallen apart.
Remember the United States was at the time merely an alliance of independent states, much like NATO or the EU. This was more or less true even after the 1787 Constitution became law. This didn't change until after the Civil War. Technically what Lincoln did was illegal. It would be like France deciding to leave the EU and the EU declaring war on them to bring them back in the fold.
So in the end since the OP made the assumption that the US stays together it stands to reason that western land claims were ceded to the federal government.
Now unless you make it so that the federal government can sell land to states as well chances are that the new federal land would be organized into territories that would eventually be submited as states.
Now if you allow federal land to be sold to states then you could create a situation where there could be a mixture of soveign states and territory owned by the east coast states. The further west you go the bigger the mess as more states from the midwest would be buying land as well.
But would the matter need to "go to Congress"?
As I noted, the CONUS requires congressional consent for the erection of new States, but afaics makes no such requirement for transfer of territory between existing ones.