Yup. Same one that was used for Alaska then, and for D.C. now – they’d elect Demmy-crats.
Note that Alaska’s GOP Congressman Don Young and Senator Frank Murkowski have backed Puerto Rico statehood in the past, presumably as a sort of pissed-on colonial solidarity thing.
According to one site, Pierce may have included the immediate statehood provision in the legislation as a “poison pill,” to ensure that the Senate wouldn’t pass it. That way he could get credit for having attempted to promote expansion, without having to actually admit a state that was mostly non-white.
What gave you that idea? I mean besides your own wishful thinking? There have been quite a few plebiscite votes on the status of Puerto Rico. So far Puerto Ricans have turned down statehood. But it looks like statehood has been gaining popularity over the years. (Actually, it looks like Puerto Ricans want “none of the above” as their official status.)
I think you need to read this and learn about the official status of Puerto Rico. I’d also like to say something about “many, many are poor and the last thing we need. . .” comment. Especially in contrast to your location, but I will remain civil.
Vermont too was an independent republic. Also mormons organized the State of Deseret and were turned down. Oklahoma and the Indian Territory each submitted seperate petitions for statehood but congress wanted one state not two from the “Twin Territories.”
Nevada was admitted even though it was woefully underpopulated. Until 1960 it was our least populated state (this has since changed a lot).
The “none of the above” option was favored by the Popular Democratic Party. They probably figured they’d get more votes that way than if they put “commonwealth.” I’d like to see an age breakdown of the vote. JRDelirious, are you out there? Can you inform us of how close we are to Puerto Rican statehood?
Aren’t there any West Virginians on this board? Despite the constitution, WV seceded from VA with no agreement by the latter, which was at the time in open rebellion. Perhaps they later agreed as the price of ending of military occupation; someone from one of those states probably knows.
And Texas has the right (granted at the time of admission) to split into as many as five states without further agreement by congress. Imagine ten senators from Texas!
I know there have been on-again, off-again attempts to have the District of Columbia accepted as a state. I have no idea what “progress” was made along these lines.
There were groups with different approaches to resolving the “No taxation without representation” quandary. Some wanted statehood and representation. Others, myself included, would have preferred exemption from federal taxes, and screw the representation.
Marion Barry singlehandedly set the cause for local political autonomy back for decades. But that’s another thread.
I’m here, I’m here… though I leave for Baltimore the afternoon of the 24th to visit my brother.
WARNING: Your question puts me almost in Great Debate territory. But here it goes:
And the answer is: No nearer than we were 10 years ago. OTOH the pro-commonwealthers’ dream of “enhancing” commonwealth to the point we become essentially a sovereign nation, but one whose “association” with the US means we’re guaranteed a subsidy to the tune of $17 billion/year by the US Treasury and that we and our progeny will all hold US passports, is just about in the same place.
Statehood per se seems to hold fast at 46.something% of the vote (though in midterm-year polls, depending on what’s on the news, it dips as low as 32%, that number rises fast when the “I Don’t Knows” and “I Don’t Cares” are struck from the statistic – which is what happens when there’s a vote.) vs. 48+% commonwealth of some kind and 4-5% for Independence outright.
Commonwealth has the advantage that in the hands of skilled lawyers it can be made to mean whatever you want it to mean. Both statehooders and independentistas dream of the US, the UN, the Pope, or aliens from Pluto, imposing upon us a straight Statehood-Independence vote, the results to be mandatory immediately. (The independentists’ theory is that Statehood would win, Congress would refuse it flat out,and then there’d be no choice but to let P.R. go. Evaluation of this logic is left as an exercise for the student.)
But the key issue is that Congress is not gonna do that – and they are not going to do a damned thing about it if it would mean an implicit offer that if we ask for statehood, we will get it presently. That is the greatest obstacle. Politically the Congress has no need for a State of Puerto Rico, NOR for a Republic of Puerto Rico. They figure the US can afford to live with the statu-quo. Statehood would move 5 or 6 districts and 7 or 8 Electoral Votes away from the current states, plus add a couple billion to the above-mentioned 17 Bil in transfers; Independence brings the very real prospect of a whole “foreign” nation of nearly 4 million people who were ALL born US citizens, and millions of whom will want to stay US citizens.
Which brings me back momentarily to the OP: There have been many territories whose petitions for statehood were tabled, postponed, voted down or just laughed at in Congress, before “the one that counted” made it thru. Tennessee went ahead and elected a Shadow Congressional Delegation as a pressure tactic when asking nicely did not work. If TOMORROW 67% of all registered voters in PR asked for statehood, that would only mean the beginning of years of work.
To be honest the greater issue of PR’s historical destiny – statehood vs. enhanced commonwealth vs. independence – has been locally hijacked by the partisan battles over who gets elected to milk the territorial budget, in a society where more than one in every four jobs is in government and just as many other jobs depend on government contracts or policies to exist.
The “NOTA” fiasco in the 1998 plebiscite was a result of that: it essentially turned into a protest vote against then-Gov Pedro Rossello, a free-marketer pro-Statehooder, and the vast majority of the pro-statu-quo, pro-independence and pro-“sovereign association” blocks plus the socioeconomic left emptied themselves into the NOTA column just to wipe the smirk off Pedro’s face. To be fair, it’s true the government drafted the definition of “commonwealth” in such a way as to rub their faces in that it is but a well-dressed colony, and the definition of “association” such as to draw attention to the separation of sovereignty from the US; IOW in the terms most unpleasant for their respective supporters to vote for, so that’s why they claimed “what WE want is not in this ballot”. That there WAS a None-Of-The-Above option resulted from a local Supreme Court decision from the time of the 1993 plebiscite.
“Virginia” did give its approval for WV statehood prior to admisssion, but it was the Virginia government formed, supported and recogized BY the Union. . .
FWIW, the 1850’s “request” for statehood from Americans in Hawaii would have been viewed in Hawaii (by the real Hawaiians) about as favorably as the Australians would view a request today from Americans living in Australia to have that country made into a US state.
The big difference between the Texan and Hawaiian nations is who formed them. Those forming the Hawaiian nation were in fact Hawaiians by birth and ancestry. Sam Houston and Co. might have been heroic and noble-minded, but I think for the most part they may have been born somewhere to the east of Texas, and I know their language and culture was that of the USA.
Uh, no it doesn’t. The whole of the territory of Texas at the time of its incorporation into the United States could be split into five states. The State of Texas was formed from most of that territory. At that point it could no longer be split. The rest of the territory eventually formed parts of neighbouring states, including New Mexico, Colorado, and Oklahoma.
How about a state that may not have been?
When Ohio was about to celebrate it’s 150 year history in the 1950s, someone researched the statehood history and discovered no record could be found concerning one of the requirements. So Congress passed a resolution saying in effect Ohio was a state retroactively.
See the Straight Dope column on that. Its a State if everyone says its a State.
It’s not quite as simple as that. Read this from urbanlegends.com.
By the way, I don’t think Texas was ever a territory. Annexation was approved by a joint resolution in both the Congresses of Texas and the US, and there was only a short period of limbo between the passing of the resolution and the US Congress’ acceptance of Texas’ state Constitution.
The Texas Congress accepted annexation on June 16, 1845. They then submitted it to popular vote, where annexation won on October 13. President Polk signed an act admitting Texas as a state on December 29. I don’t believe Texas ever had territorial status during that time, it was just somewhere between independence and statehood.
Here, incidently, is a copy of the joint resolution which annexed Texas. Of particular interest are the following passages:
Bolding mine. Straight from Republic to state- nothing about a territory.
Bolding mine. The word “hereafter” suggests to me “at any time in the future,” but I could be wrong, not being a lawyer.
Okay, this time the hijack’s really over. 
California never was a territory either. It just sort of sat around in legal limbo until the Compromise of 1850 was passed.
Peter Burnett was elected governor of California in 1849 and just sort of hung around until September 9, 1850 when statehood was finally granted.
He resigned from office in 1851 because California was admitted as a free state.
Here is the order of events in the forming of West Virginia; one place for more detail is here.[list=1][li]Virginia Secession Convention votes for secession from Union.[/li][li]Most delegates from western Virginia leave the Secession Convention and return home.[/li][li]Virginia voters approve secession.[/li][li]Western delegates form Reorganized Government of Virginia.[/li][li]Reorganized Government of Virginia is recognized by Lincoln as only legal state government for Virginia.[/li][li]Reorganized Government of Virginia gives western counties (i.e., themselves) permission to form a new state.[/li][li]West Virginia gets statehood.[/li][/list=1]So, the letter of the law was followed, and “Virginia” did give permission for the new state to be formed. Lincoln was not being cavalier in recognizing the rump government in Wheeling, as there were many in the North that believed that any state which seceded was no longer a state, and thus had no legal standing (after the war, the Confederate states had to meet a list of conditions in order to be readmitted to the Union.) There were certain other irregularities as well, such as allegations of Confederate sympathizers being kept away from the polls, and the counties of the Eastern Panhandle being added to get the B&O line entirely inside Union territory, but these acts were justified as politically and militarily necessary.
Somebody stole my “Lies my teacher told me.” book, and I know that some of you don’t hold that book in high regard. However, I recall him claiming that one of the Indian tribes petitioned for statehood in the early 1800’s. (It was an effort to not get kicked off their land, and was ignored/turned down).
These hypothetical states carved from Texas - is there any speculation on where their boundaries would be and what their names and capitals would be?