The United States is strange for many reasons, not the least
of which is separating states into two. For Instance, North and
South Carolina's evolution from the colony to two separate
colonies and then two states occurred back in the 1700s and was
caused partly by messy beginnings of governance and poor
leadership, and partly by the fact that the original land grant
was too large.
West Virginia split
from the eastern portion of Virginia in 1861, because the latter
voted to secede from the United States in the lead-up to the
Civil War.
North and South Dakota
had at least two reasons to split. From the creation of the
Dakota Territory in 1861 until 1883, Yankton was the capital, in
the southeastern corner of the territory. It was a steamboat
landing along the Missouri River. However, the landing was
crushed by the breaking of an ice dam, in 1881, and the entire
riverfront and downtown area were flooded.
Two years later, the
northern region of the Dakota Territory declared Bismarck as the
capital of the territory. The people living in the southern
region planned to become a separate state from the northern
territory, so that they could have their own capital. The
government balked and said there were not enough people for two
states. When North Dakota was finally populated enough to become
a state, in 1889, there was a rivalry about which state would be
admitted first.
Another, perhaps more
important, reason for two separate states instead of one large
state was four senators, instead of two, and more
representatives. Since Dakotans from the north and the south
routinely voted Republican, the admission of two Dakotas gave
the Republicans a majority in Congress. I am surprised the
residents of the various Hawaiian Islands have not
thought of that tactic.