[[Notwithstanding the Constitutional provisions previously cited… under the terms of the treaty by which the nation of Texas became a part of the US, they were granted the right to form as many as five states – a right which… still remains to this day.]]
Yes, I’ve heard of that, and as far as I know the right theoretically still exists. How it would work in practice, I don’t know. (This wouldn’t violate any constitutional provision, though–it would be the State of Texas, rather than Congress, causing the breakup of the state.)
An interesting counterpart (which has nothing to do with the subject, but oh well) is the formation of the United Nations. Stalin originally insisted that the component repubilcs of the Soviet Union be full members–a way of padding his vote totals, in effect. Roosevelt told Uncle Joe that was fine, but all 48 states would have to be full members too. This should have put paid to the whole idea, but Stalin apparently couldn’t back down completely (it might have been a sign of weakness internally) so he compromised. The Soviet repubics of Belarus and Ukraine became full voting members of the UN, and the United States was given the right to name two states to full membership as well. (No states were ever named–constitutionally it wouldn’t have worked–but the theoretical right probably still exists.)
Nature abhors a vacuum, which means there are a lot of people whose brains are in mortal peril.
IIRC, a couple of years ago it was discovered that by virtue of some document-filing technicality, Ohio was not actually a state.
I remember that some people started scheming ways to get out of their Ohio State Income taxes, but some declaration was passed that righted the technicality and alas, Ohio remained a state.
More complicated than that. They claimed that the 16th amendment, authorizing the federal income tax, was invalid because Taft was not really President because he wasn’t a native-born American because Ohio was not really a state.
The truth:
A) The “paperwork” in question is not required.
B) In any case, Congress made the paperwork a dead issue as soon as the first Ohio senator or representative was seated.
C) Besides that, Ohio was part of the United States before it was a state, so Taft was a native-born citizen anyway.
D) Besides that, law doesn’t work like mathematical theorems or computer programs. Even if it were to be shown today that Taft had not been eligible to be President, it wouldn’t legally invalidate anything he did. (This is because of a legal doctrine that is known by a Latin phrase that loosely translates as: “Get real!”)
E) And in any case, the President has nothing to do with the process of amending the Constitution.
John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams
Pff, it’s also got Ralph Klein, Preston Manning, mosquitoes, racist lunatics, and police who blow up oil wells and blame it on environmentalists. As far as I’m concerned it’s already a de facto US state. It’s, like, Utah North or something.
And no, you can’t have any of our territories. Or Quebec.
Are you sure? I’d kind of like to have your newest territory, Nunavut. Two reasons for that: (1) I love the sound of the name, and (2) the territorial flag is pretty cool.