Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 07:02, 3 September 2005

This is part of a WikiProject.

For optional guidelines on contributing see WikiProject U.S. States

Division of Texas

The District of Columbia is also one of the political subdivisions of the United States. I also read somewhere that the Texas dividing into 5 other states is an urban legend, but I can't find it right this second. -- Zoe

• Sorry for a delayed answer, but I just recently noted your comment. The treaty negotiated between Texas and U.S wasn't ratified by U.S., further negotiations produced a congressional Joint Res (JR) in 1844 that supported Texas admission and had the 5 states (actually 4 additional) comment. The pre-admission Texas legislature passed a word for word identical resolution in July, 1844. BUT, when Texas was admitted again after the civil war the whole issue was dropped. Today it would take a building full of lawyers to write briefs on both sides of the can Texas unilateraly subdivide issue. Besides, except for a radical fringe, we don't want to.- Lou I 17:34 25 May 2003 (UTC)
  • I belive the "Texas can subdivide" issue related the entry of Texas into the Union: The treaty mentioned above merely meant that the Republic of Texas could, if it wanted, enter the Union as up to 5 states instead of one. But once it actually entered the Union as one state, this provision of the treaty was no longer meaningfull. Incidentally, the Constitution says that a state legislature can vote to split a state up, though Congress would have to approve the admission of each new state. This has happened once, in the case of West Virginia, though that situation was a bit dodgy. --jfruh
    • Several clarifications: 1) Texas was not admitted to the Union by a treaty. The initial proposed treaty was rejected by the U.S. Senate. Congress subsequently passed a joint resolution inviting Texas to join the Union (the same method used to admit every state after the original 13). That resolution specifically stated that, once Texas became a state, new states could be created out of it. (The text of the resolution can be seen here, as part of ordinance passed by the Texas constitutional convention.) However, the resolution is ambiguous as to who (i.e., the federal government or Texas) could initiate the division. 2) Your statement about the creation of new states from existing is correct, but incomplete. Maine was originally part of Massachusetts, but was admitted to the Union in 1820 with the approval of the Massachusetts state legislature and Congress. In contrast to the West Virginia situation, the admission of Maine was unquestionably constitutional. Mateo SA | talk 02:25, May 26, 2005 (UTC)

Capitalization of first letter

Shouldn't the first letter of "state" in this context be capitalized to distinguish it from state? --Jiang 07:41 30 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Iraq

Er... Iraq is now a U.S. colony? I gotta turn on the news more often... -- Wapcaplet 19:42 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I looked around and couldn't find any corroborating evidence on this; there's some speculation that the Bush administration may want to turn Iraq into a colony. Looks like Mav already reverted it. -- Wapcaplet 19:53 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Is the formal status that Iraq is still an "occupied territory" that is being "administered" by the US-led coalition? Or something else? Martin

I errored the US is the "occupying power" not "colonial power" over Iraq. PeterK

Secession

It is the widely held perception that the American Civil War determined that it could not , though a good number of states' rights supporters assert that the American Civil War was conducted illegally or was not a definitive precedent.

I removed everything after "it could not". The secession of a U.S. State is not a serious proposition and its possibility is considered only by a handful of wackos and perhaps a handful of academics with no grasp on reality. User:Tempshill

It didn't used to be such. The South is not the only area that ever wanted to secede. --Golbez 07:07, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)

Spanish origin of name of California

Two references to back up the assertion that the name California is Spanish in origin:

Both were found during aprox. 60 min. of web search, no other corroborating (sp?) or conflicting referrences were found. What they state is that California was named after the mythical paradise called Califia found in the book Las Sergas de Esplandián by Garcia Ordóñez de Montalvo written c. 1510.

Ducker 08:41, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Map scale

Where could I find a map of the United States where Alaska is to the same scale? I'l like to make a map for the Alaska page that has Alaska overlayed on the contenental U.S. to give a sense of scale. User:63.231.59.63

The map is distorted: If Alaska is to scale, it would be almost as large as the contigious 48 states. Is there a more accurate map available? User:67.168.16.202

State mottos

I want to add a state mottos in Latin, but with all of my respect I will not do it alone, without discuss. So, How and Where I must add them...Alabama- Audemus iura nostra defendere - We dare defend our rights, Arizona- Ditat Deus - God enriches...etc. --Egon 14:14, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Regions

I know that I'm probably going to get yelled at but the United States actually does have "official" regions. They are the four regions that are used by the Census Bureau; Northeast, Midwest, West, and South. If we used these regions we could get regional information directly from the census bureau. Using this system may also put some of the "controversy" to rest over which state is listed in which region since this is how the Federal Government groups them. I know that several encyclopedias still use these regions, but the borders and members of the Southwest and Mid Atlantic are nebulous at best, are often gerrymandered, and vary from book to book. You can see how the Census Bureau divides the US at http://www.census.gov/geo/www/us_regdiv.pdf. I don't want to delete the other regions but these should take precedence over them. The regions are more cosmopolitan culturally and therefore less likely to have one culture dominate another. Please post on my talk page, or here. As of December 22, I received permission from Sfmontyo to convert us_regions.gif to the Census Bureau Model. Since this is a somewhat controversial topic I wanted to discuss it before I started any changes. I would appreciate any help resolving this issue. --JCarriker December 22, 2003

I have a comment - leave the biological references alone! When you alter Fouquieria to say American West, that implies the plants might be found in Washington state, which is completely misleading. When describing American Southwest, it's important to say that it's not an official census region, and to describe the range of interpretations (Arizona is always in, Utah maybe or maybe not). The concept of the Southwest is very familiar even if its borders are not, and WP performs a useful service by carefully describing the distinction. Stan 14:48, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC)

JCarriker,

I realize what you're trying to do with changing the regions of the US to match the government's... but I think that some discussion is warranted before obliterating all references to the Southwest, Mid-Atlantic, etc. While the government may break up the country in that way, the majority of the population uses Southwest, Mid-Atlantic, etc. You would be changing the meanings of many articles if you changed those references (like you did in the Dallas and DART articles), and going against years of historical use and generally accepted terms and customs.

I would suggest that you make a different map of the US with the 4 "official" regions, not simply replace the map of the "traditional" regions. Then create new articles for the official regions and retain the articles about Southwest and Mid-Atlantic etc. with references that those are commonly used but unofficial terms (like some of those articles have). Then add links to the official region names.

I think this would be simpler, more helpful and understandable to the general public, and a lot easier than facing the tide of resistance you'll face when changing all references to the Southwest, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, etc.

Thanks, Jfitts 16:16, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I always have wanted to discuss this as I knew that it would be controversial. Also I have ridden DART and it is very nice! First of all it is not my intention to obliterate the Southwest or all references to it. The four regions should come into play only when broad generalizations are necessary. Otherwise their should be a listing of the states or parts of states that apply. If the meaning southwest was broadened to include California, as it sometimes is, then DART was not the first light rail in the southwest. Even if Texas were placed into the four region system, Atlanta would still have beaten it by two years. It was however the first light rail in Texas and therefore I changed it to Texas.

Now as to the history of US regions the southwest region, as it is applied on WP, is not historic but came into vogue in the mid-twentieth century. As late as the 1940’s both Arkansas and Louisiana were considered “southwestern states.” In many of the Articles include Nevada, Utah, and Colorado as southwestern states. In it’s broadest sense the 19th century included: Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Utah. This came about as the traditional boundary between east and west in 19th Century geography was the Mississippi River. All except about a fifth, including Baton Rouge and New Orleans in that eastern fifth, of Louisiana were west of the river. The concept of the “West” region as it is portrayed here is not even in context with the southwest region. By looking in any encyclopedia that has this display you would see that the “West” region is subdivided into the Mountain and Pacific regions. In this scheme it is likely that the south would be called Southeast and occasionally Kentucky and West Virginia would be place in the Mid West while Virginia would go with the Mid Atlantic states.

Also the South Central region is not listed and what of the Pacific Northwest? If WP keeps this current grid of regions soon people will start carving and gerrymandering, the map to create new or should I say old regions. These regions are set in stone, there is no debate about who goes where because the government has already decided. If we decided to use the regional statistics the Census Bureau compiles, we would find we couldn’t because the southwest has been carved out of the South and West and New England (which if any region is historic it is this one) and the Mid Atlantic are carved out of the Northeast, the data is worthless.

I’m not saying that these regions should be deleted, but should be treated as unofficialregions that in some instances share cultures. However they should be listed with other regions that the state is or was in for example.

Texas is a state in the US South. Texas is some times considered in the Southwest or South Central Regions. In the 19th Century Texas was briefly part of the Trans-Mississippi Region.

If Wiki adopted this it would be easier and more accurate for everyone. ---JCarriker December 23, 2003.

Federalism

The article has stated: "Under the United States Constitution, the federal government can legislate only on matters explicitly delegated to it by the Constitution, with the remaining governmental powers belonging to each individual state." This gives a misleading picture of the status of federalism as of 2004, particularly with word "explicitly". The federal government exercises its supremacy in ways that many people would argue go far beyond any explicit Constitutional delegation. Some of these people would praise the increased centralization, some would condemn it, but no one seriously disputes that the federal government is not now the narrowly limited entity that it was before the decision in McCulloch v. Maryland. I've reworded the passage to be more accurate. JamesMLane 17:59, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The effect of the 14th Amendment was that a very large group of people became United States citizens - which had the effect of extending the power of the United States to all of the areas and territories which this citizenship occupied. The Consitution did not delegate this power to the Federal government until the 14th Amendment was radified. The word "civil" pertains to government - the effect of a war about "government" is that government changed. The "free states" were never reorganized after the civil war and this changed government in many ways as no new input of law has occurred from these free states. The government has simply filled the void created by the fact that the people are no longer self governing. User:216.78.8.110

Typo in map?

according to the homepage of the university in Massachusetts ( http://www.umass.edu/ ), Massachusetts is spelled Massachusetts, not Massachussetts User:62.134.88.13

Removed a link

This URL no longer works. It was in the External Links section

• Enlarged map of northeast

--Patik 20:36, Dec 19, 2004 (UTC)

Largest city in Montana

According to this, Billings has a much larger population than Helena. I'm assuming that the "Largest city" list is by population. -- Kirill Lokshin 03:04, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

You're right. I wasn't looking at the edits too closely and thought the edit was about the capital of Montana. Sorry. Mateo SA | talk 00:32, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

Texas v. White

The case says that no state may lawfully leave the union, let this article says that it may not leave " at least under the circumstances" that seems a little too iffy for me Mbisanz 04:08, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

Actually, the case is Texas v. White — Mateo SA | talk 21:24, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

Sorry about my citing error, but the underlying question of how to refer to the case still exists Mbisanz 08:06, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

Maryland Named After a British Monarch?

I was under the impression that Maryland was named after the Virgin Mary, due to Maryland being a society of catholics originally. I do not think it was named after Queen Mary and the state does not belong on that list. KStingily 00:01 September 03, 2005