The 124 states of America

[MindMover]

Secessionist movements are all the rage these days. A handful of counties in Colorado tried to secede from the rest of the state earlier this year. There's an attempt to create the State of Jefferson (northern California/southern Oregon) via ballot initiative in 2014. And there's plenty more.

What would the U.S. look like if all of the secession movements in U.S. history had succeeded? Well, Mansfield University geography professor Andrew Shears built a map to answer that question. (It covers secession movements through the end of 2011.) His 124 states of America is below.

Click the map to enlarge it.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/12/31/the-124-states-of-america/?hpid=z4

[dipsydoodle]

1. Thought maybe

Nebraska would've become "A bit more south Dakota" and Kansas "Even more south than that Dakota"

[MindMover]

2. Never would have guessed Illinois was so secessionist ....

[jakeXT]

3. Not that bad

[truebluegreen]

4. When did the US acquire Baja and Cuba?

Not to mention Sonora and Chihuahua.

[Comrade Grumpy]

5. Around and after the civil war, there were various efforts by defeated southerners...

...to gobble up new territory to create new slave states. I suspect that's what these are.

[truebluegreen]

6. Ah! Thank you.

I was afraid I'd missed something.

[ieoeja]

12. Correction: those were before the Civil War.

Southerners invaded Cuba twice before the Civil War. Second time the Spanish killed one of every ten captives. After that they turned to attempts to purchase Cuba or convince the United States to conquer Cuba for them.

Also before the Civil War, they succeeded in conquering Baja California. They then used Baja as a base for invading Sonoma which resulted in them losing both Baja and Sonoma.

Then there was Guatemala. They assisted one side in a civil war. After the war they asked for all the Black citizens to be their slaves in payment. The new government refused prompting them to take control of the country themselves. When they stated rounding up Blacks and collaring them, all the neighboring countries rushed in to restore the original government. The southerners re-invaded Guatemala a second time. As with Cuba, they lost and large numbers of them were executed to put a stop to the invasions.


I believe the federal government only took two anti-slave positions prior to the Civil War: prohibited slavery in federal territories and partook in the African slave embargo. A breeding slave is not a working slave. A child slave is not a working slave. As such, most slave owners wanted nothing to do with breeding slaves.

Plus, the 3/5th rule meant the Masters received more political power if they had more slaves (for some odd reason today's liberals think it is "digusting" that Masters only received 60% more political power for each slave they owned). And, of course, the United States was growing and the slave economy needed more slaves to spread into the new states.

So the Norman/Celts were desperate for more slaves to counter the power of the Anglo-Saxons. And one way of getting more slaves was invading countries were they could be obtained.

[darkangel218]

7. Lmao @ chihuahua!!

[MindMover]

8. or forgottonia ....

[darkangel218]

9. Wheres that one?

I missed it

[MindMover]

10. Illinois ...

[darkangel218]

11. Oh i see it, nevermind lmao!!!

[Humanist_Activist]

13. Sometimes I feel St. Louis would be better off as a city-state...

It looks like, from that map, that it would encompass St. Louis City, St. Louis County, St. Charles County, and Jefferson County. Right now we are at the mercy of Republican assholes in Jefferson City because much of the rest of the state outweighs the Democratic influence of St. Louis, Columbia and Kansas City. If St. Louis(and the surrounding counties) were to be there own state, then it would be Blue, but tinged that way, Jefferson County and St. Charles County, and some of St. Louis county(mostly Akins old district) are Republican strongholds, but there's enough Democrats here to more than balance them out.

Hell, it wasn't until this year that St. Louis City even had control of its own police department, it was managed by the state, from Jefferson City, for over a hundred years, a holdover from the civil war.

[MindMover]

14. omg, ...

[Humanist_Activist]

15. Not sure what your comment is directed at, if its the last sentence...

well...St. Louis is rather unusual in a few regards, it is an independent city, not a member of any county, and has been that way for over a century. It was by state referendum that the city is able to regain control of its police department, and now there is talk of the state putting the City of St. Louis's status as an independent city up for a vote, to merge it back into St. Louis County. Most likely this will just make the City of St. Louis a part of the county, like any other city in the county(of which there are over a hundred or so, its ridiculous), or possibly a super merger of sorts, merging many of the municipalities in the county with St. Louis, most likely the inner belt suburbs, in addition to making it a part of the county.

There's even talk of merging St. Louis City and County together under city government, which would increase the population of the city about 3-4 times the size it is now, and greatly expand the land area. Though this idea is far fetched.

[MindMover]

16. A politicians wetdream about tax monies ....

"There's even talk of merging St. Louis City and County together under city government, which would increase the population of the city about 3-4 times the size it is now, and greatly expand the land area. Though this idea is far fetched."

and yes, my omg was about a local city police dept that is overseen by the county or state ...

[Humanist_Activist]

17. Actually, a merger of that sort would reduce some taxes for most people in the area...

especially when you add up county/separate city taxes, with their own additional sales tax rates, property tax assessments, etc. It can be rather extreme, and I wasn't kidding, we have about a hundred cities in St. Louis County alone.

I don't live in the City of St. Louis, I live in the County, in the city of Lakeshire, it is, quite literally, a couple of neighborhoods, its city hall/police department/court is up the street, in a ranch style house. Its population is 4,000 or so, maybe a little more. We do not live out in the boonies or anything, in fact, Lakeshire is about 5-10 minutes away from the City of St. Louis(not highway), its actually surrounded mostly by Affton, an inner-ring city suburb, and bordered by another small city Green Park, which is about the same size, or even smaller, population wise.

Here's a map, for the curious:
https://www.google.com/maps/preview#!q=lakeshire+mo&data=!1m4!1m3!1d7753!2d-90.3384159!3d38.5394499!4m12!2m11!1m10!1s0x87d8c9084a6ea1a5%3A0xd4c7e2b5cebb3f7a!3m8!1m3!1d3206056!2d-92.437099!3d38.3046614!3m2!1i1024!2i768!4f13.1

Even as a native St. Louisan, I was unaware this city even existed until I moved here, it gets ridiculous, and because its such a small city, we pay an additional utility tax on both gas and electric, every month, on top of the utility taxes we already pay.

The issue is that, as residents of the county, we may end up having a large amount of overhead above us compared to other areas of the country, and I haven't even gotten into the unique situation with how the city and county deal with shared issues, which have to be worked out separately than they would if one of the other had jurisdiction, for example in utility sharing, management of parks, public transportation, etc. Its a mess.

Oddly enough, the people most resistant to a merger isn't from the city, but the county, and yes, a lot of it is related to the racial issues here, which aren't unique to St. Louis by any stretch of the imagination. Personally I'm in favor of St. Louis city at least becoming part of the county, it will increase the tax base of the county, along with being able to streamline many services that residents of both enjoy. I'd even be in favor of the city expanding its borders to some of the inner ring suburbs, to further streamline certain issues.

[SomethingFishy]

18. What state do you live in?

Nothing like a little Calvin & Hobbes to start the new year right.