Do you believe that the U.S. will one day have more than 50 states?

1. 73

   Marisaupaposted 11 years ago

   Do you believe that the U.S. will one day have more than 50 states?
   
   Be it in your lifetime or thereafter, do you feel that there will be more states in the Union at some point?  Would you even want that to happen?  Would that be  a recipe for renewed grandness or disaster?
   
   

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2. 82

   Attikosposted 11 years ago

   Possibly. Puerto Rico is a prospective one. The question lurking in the background, though, is how long will the United States itself last? Will it survive long enough to add more States? Now it has abandoned constitutional federal government for an increasingly authoritarian nation-state alienated from the people and controlled only by politics, power and money, Americans will not put up with it forever.

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3. 76

   handymanbillposted 11 years ago

   Puerto Rico may one day become a state. They have put off joining even though they receive many benefits from this country. Weather it happens or not does not really matter to me. I don't believe that it would be a disaster or grandness if they became a state.

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4. 53

   whonunuwhoposted 11 years ago

   Yes, Puerto Rico will probably become a state. There are states so large in this country now that might benefit from being divided into new states, especially in the west and south west. At one time, Georgia encompassed several that are now states, and later divided into about six new ones. Who would have dreamed that Hawaii would ever become a state?

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5. 0

   Old Empresarioposted 11 years ago

   Well we only have four territories left that could potentially become states at this point: Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Samoa, and Guam. Puerto Rico turned down the invitation to become number 51 in the 1990s.

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6. 59

   RavenBikerposted 11 years ago

   Interesting question. 
   
   Historically speaking, the admissions of states to the union generally came in pairs after the original thriteen British colonies. 
   
   Examples:
   
   1. The pairing of state hood admissions was done to balance power betweeen the southern and northern states, i.e., Maine, which was a part of Massechusetts until the Missouri Compromise.
   
   2. During the American Civil War, West Virginia split from Virginia with Nevada quickly added to further isolate the Mormon dominated Utah territory.  The Civil War allowed time for the Mormon population to become pretty strong economically and politically.
   
   2. Hawai and Alaska, the 49th and 50th states, admitted to control the spread of communisim (both being admitted in the same year, 1959, the year the Cold War was reaching for its coldest).  Alaska was a Russian colony until the gold rushes of the late 19th century made the population made mostly up of Americans.
   
   The conditions for Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia to become states (current populist additions) do not have compelling conditions for their admissions.  Puerto Rico has tried many times in the recent past and it haves failed.
   
   No.  I do not see added state hoods in my lifetime.

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