"I don't like these damn socialists lets secede" - William Barret Travis, if he time traveled to 2013.

Texas never should have been allowed into the union as a single state. It's simply too big. There is a similar problem with California, which should have been divided as well -- it would have fixed the free/slave balance, to have both states divided up. If I had my druthers, I'd separate both states into at least three, ideally five, separate states.

California and Texas were both republics before they entered the Union, so they had the upper hand on the US government, which wasn't in a position to negotiate as it wanted (and needed) the land. No way we were going to break up independent republics.

We already know y'all other states are jealous of our size, ckr.

Great thread Thucy. Hurrah for Texas!

Did the USA ever even recognize California? In any event, Texas was very eager to join the USA, as was California; it might have been more difficult to divide them up, but it was other circumstances that led to each state coming into the union in such a hurry. Mostly it was about preserving the slave-free balance, which as history showed proved to be impossible in the long run.

semck, it's not jealousy, although I do hear that everything is bigger in Texas, which I think is related to why one is not supposed to mess with Texas.

Not to get this thread derailed too much more, but I think that most of the larger U.S. states are far, far too big. I think ten million people in any particular state is a good peg for too many, so CA, TX, NY, FL, IL, PA, and OH should be divided up. Texas and California should be divided up multiple times. Most of these states have easy and obvious social, political, ecological, and/or political dividing lines.

ckr,

I don't really see a problem with how Texas is. One could say the US is too big and should be divided too, I suppose. But it seems kind of arbitrary to me. I don't see that it is causing Texas any problems, which is the only definition of "too big" that I can think of. (Perhaps you do think it is causing problems. I'd be interested to hear what they are).

One thing that has been often observed by people who know Texas decently well is the odd coherence of the place -- wherever you are in the state (which, as you point out, is geographically extremely diverse), whether you're talking to rich or poor, young or old, liberal or conservative, atheist or religious, and irrespective of race, there tends to be a strong Texas identity. This is far more true than with any other state (though one or two come a little close). (John Steinbeck has a wonderful description of this phenomenon in "Travels with Charlie.")

I would argue that for this reason, Texas would be the *worst* state to split up. It is the one in which there is the strongest sense of identity and pride, and it acts as an odd and hard-to-describe unification among people who otherwise would not be unified.

@ckroberts - can we just eliminate a couple of those? I'm not sure I want them contaminating the gene pool.

As for Texas, though, I think we are fine.

(Meanwhile, off to Denmark in real life, not a reference to any ongoing games.)

Contrary to myth, California was never really an independent state. There was a popular revolt a few weeks before the Mexican War which ended the authority of the Mexican government, but California never formed a government or any of the other trappings of independence before the state was occupied by the US Army.

There is a certain point beyond which a state population is too big for adequate representation. Centralization of power and responsibility inevitably makes a government unresponsive, at some point, to local and minority needs and interests. This isn't a new idea; concern over the ideal size of a representative government goes all the way back to the ancient Greeks and Romans. No state had more than half a million people when the Constitution was adopted. Technology and infrastructure have changed dramatically since then, so we don't need to stick to the standards that worked in the 1700s. Anyway, the solution to this problem is supposed to be federalism. But federalism doesn't work if some states have such a power advantage against the others. And at the same time, it warps parts of our system in other ways that hurt the interest of big state residents -- Texans should be represented by more than two senators.

Admittedly this is all not terribly sophisticated analysis, and people who live in Texas or California certainly have a better on-the-ground picture than I do.

As a Californian myself, I wholeheartedly agree that the state is simply too big and ought to be broken up. The northern and southern parts of the state have as many differences - politically, culturally, economically, historically, geographically, demographically, etc. - as any other two states in the union. There are frequent calls (these days, mostly from Republicans who are completely shut out from political power in Sacramento - Democrats hold all the statewide offices and have supermajorities in the legislature) for a fission of the state, but unfortunately they are never taken all that seriously.

California will not be split (most likely) simply due to water. Those of us in the south are completely dependent on the northern part of the state for water (well the Colorado as well, but that is another subject), so I don't see a schism of the state being a viable option.

@Tolstoy ... I may be clueless, but wanting a fission in the state seems to be political if only the Republicans "shut out from political power" want it and nobody else really does...

Anyway, what's wrong with a big state? Canada's not splitting up Nunavut just because the large northern portion of it is not the same as the southern. Alaska's not split up and Anchorage is as different from Juneau as Obama is from Ron Paul. If California split up because of differences like that then we'd be in for a major overhaul.

California was not to big. I mean sure it is pretty darn big but its not that huge. Texas on the other hand to big with nothing covering it. California's is at least inhabited

Texas does have the right under the ordinance of annexation to create four additional states, provided they are of sufficient population. How would you subdivide Texas?

"wanting a fission in the state seems to be political if only the Republicans "shut out from political power" want it and nobody else really does..."

Many of the motivations are very political. The north is generally viewed as very liberal (San Francisco), while the south (Orange County, San Diego) is viewed as very conservative. Also, if you look at who controls Sacramento (within the ruling Democratic Party) nearly all of the leadership is northerners.

"California will not be split (most likely) simply due to water."

I think this is a smaller obstacle than is generally presumed. An interstate compact would be signed, guaranteeing that the water from the north continues to flow in return for some kind of consideration. It wouldn't be all that different from the Colorado River compact between all the states that river runs through. And if the North decided it wasn't going to let the south have any water, well, there's a great big ocean off the coast with plenty of H20 - it's just a question of building some really massive desalination plants. As well, there are some regions of SoCal that are already getting all their water from local aquifers (the city of San Bernardino is sitting on top of a massive underground lake, for instance).

ckr,

I still don't find your analysis compelling. For example, you don't even seem to know whether you think Texas has too much power or too little. Too much certainly seems a stretch -- it gets the same number of people per representative district as any other state (except the smaller states, which get more); and obviously it does not have any advantage in the Senate. So I don't really get how you think it is too powerful, except in the sense that any area containing 24 million people is going to have a lot of power in the US, whether it's one state or 5. (It will have more as 5).

As for Texas itself not working -- well, I'm not really aware of any big problems, certainly not related to its size. I agree that that was a major concern at the time of the founding, and rightly so, but thanks to decentralization, etc., I juust don't see it playing out as a problem on the ground.

As hecks points out, Texas does actually have the unilateral right to split into five if we ever wish to. There is very, very litlte desire for this in Texas, which is where you suggest the problems would be created (having too many people for representative government). Which makes me wonder why a non-Texan would care at all to have an opinion on the issue.

I can settle all these disagreements:

Fuck Texas.

Really, I've been in Texas for exactly 30 minutes layover in Dallas.

I was there just long enough to take a crap in the airport bathroom where I proceeded to get my own shit on myself. This has never happened before or since. Coincidence? I think not.

Semck you are from Texas? That explains a lot. You're actually a liberal... you know, in comparison.

I was in Texas for a week and it was very nice. Aside from the part where a guy started streaking at a Mavericks game that is.