Could we have a 51st state?

Some grumpy Northern Coloradoans have proposed seceding from Colorado and becoming a 51st state (called, creatively enough, “North Colorado”).

Image courtesy walkingsf

New states are not entirely outside the realm of possibility. After all, the United States’ state boundaries didn’t magically spring forth from the earth pre-formed. Congress passed laws granting statehood as recently as 1959 (Alaska and Hawaii) and 1912 (New Mexico and Arizona). There is even precedent for secession: West Virginia seceded from Virginia in 1863.

However, no matter how many Northern Coloradoans want to secede, Congress needs to approve each and every admission of a new state into the union. The District of Columbia Statehood Movement and Puerto Rico Statehood Movement have not had much luck in the past.

Stranger things have happened, but it’s not likely we’ll need to scrap our maps to add North Colorado any time soon.

For more:

• An Act to provide for the admission of the State of Alaska into the Union (“Alaska Statehood Act”), Pub.L. 85-508, enacted Jul. 7, 1958, 72 Stat. 339, (also from the Yale Avalon Project)
• An Act to Provide for the Admission of the State of Hawaii into the Union (“Hawaii Admission Act”), Pub.L. 86–3, enacted Mar. 18, 1959.
• Enabling Act of 1910, 36 Stat. 557 (New Mexico, Arizona) (from the Arizona State Legislature) (track votes)
• Enabling Act of 1906 (Oklahoma Enabling Act) (from Cornell’s Legal Information Institute)
• Enabling Act of 1889, 25 Stat. 676, enacted Feb. 22, 1889 (North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Washington) (from the Washington State Legislature)
• Enabling Act of 1802, 2 Stat. 173, (Ohio) (from the National Archives); see also Seventh Congress, Session II, Chapter VII  An act to provide for the due execution of the laws of the United States, within the state of Ohio enacted Feb. 19, 1803.
• Andro Linklater, Measuring America: How the United States Was Shaped By the Greatest Land Sale in History (2003) (Amazon).
• Mark Stein, How the States Got Their Shapes (2009) (Amazon).
• Gary Alden Smith, State and National Boundaries of the United States (Amazon) (Chapter One: Introduction)
• Edwin Danson, Drawing the Line : How Mason and Dixon Surveyed the Most Famous Border in America (2000) (Amazon).
• The History Channel’s How The States Got Their Shapes
• 7NEWS, 51st state, North Colorado, proposal faces opposition (Oct. 22, 2013). 
• 51st State, Status of My County