51st state
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- This article is about a hypothetical U.S. state. For the song, see 51st State. For the film, see The 51st State.
Image:Us flag large 51 stars.png 51st state, in American political discourse, is a phrase that refers to territories considered candidates for addition to the fifty states already part of the "Union". While sometimes used in a serious political context, it is often used humorously to refer to Canada or the United Kingdom.
The term is also used in Canada and other countries as a term signifying negative American influence viewed as excessive. In Europe, people who believe their local or national culture has become too Americanized sometimes use the term "51st state" in critical reference to their respective countries.
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Potential candidates
Under Article IV, Section Three of the United States Constitution, which outlines the relationship between the states, the Congress has the power to admit new states to the union. The states are required to give "full faith and credit" to the acts of each other's legislatures and courts, which is generally held to include the recognition of legal contracts, marriages, and criminal judgments. The states are guaranteed military and civil defense by the federal government, which is also obligated to ensure that the government of each state remains a republic. New states are admitted into the Union by the precedents and procedures established by the Northwest Ordinance. Following the precedent established by the Enabling Act of 1802, an Enabling Act must be passed by Congress as a prerequisite to admission. The act authorizes the people of a territory to frame a constitution, and lays down the Congress's requirements that must be met before it will allow statehood.
District of Columbia
- Main articles: D.C. Statehood and New Columbia
The District of Columbia is widely recognized to be, along with Puerto Rico, one of the most likely candidates for statehood in the near future; one being a federal district and the other a commonwealth. (See D.C. Statehood). Of the potential candidates, citizens of the District of Columbia tend to be most supportive of statehood, yet this would likely require amendment of the United States Constitution. D.C. residents who support this movement sometimes use the Revolutionary War protest motto "Taxation without representation", denoting their lack of Congressional representation; the phrase is now printed automatically on all newly issued D.C. license plates, while for a fee (the usual "vanity plate" fee) a driver may choose to have the D.C. Web address printed instead. President Bill Clinton's presidential limo had the "Taxation..." license plate late in his term, while President George W. Bush had the limo's plates changed shortly after beginning his term in office.
This position was carried by the D.C. Statehood Party, a minor party; it has since merged with the local Green Party affiliate to form the D.C. Statehood Green Party. The nearest this movement ever came to success was in 1978, when Congress passed the District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment. Two years later in 1980, local citizens passed an initiative calling for a constitutional convention for a new state. In 1982, voters ratified the constitution of the state, which was to be called New Columbia. The drive for statehood stalled in 1985, however, when the D.C. Voting Rights Amendment failed because not enough states ratified the amendment within the seven-year span specified.
Another proposed option would be to have Maryland, from which the current land was ceded, retake the District of Columbia, as Virginia has already done for its part. This would give D.C. residents the benefit of statehood while precluding the creation of a 51st state.
Puerto Rico
- See also: Puerto Rican politics
Image:US Flag 51stars alternate.png Puerto Ricans for their part have repeatedly voted against statehood, by narrow margins each time, for themselves, believing they benefit more from the status quo, yet support for statehood has risen in each successive popular referendum over the past several decades.
Other US territories
Other less likely contenders are Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands, both of which are unincorporated organized territories of the United States, the Northern Mariana Islands, which is a commonwealth like Puerto Rico, and American Samoa, an unorganized, unincorporated territory. However, due to their very small populations, if granted statehood, the above territories would have an over-representation in Congress if they even had one representative. However, the representation between the Virgin Islands and the small states would be no less unproportioned than the unproportional represenation that is already present between California and Wyoming in the United States Senate. Other proposals call for the Virgin Islands to be admitted with Puerto Rico as one state and for the amalgamation of U.S territories or former territories in the Pacific Ocean, in the manner of the "Greater Hawaii" concept of the 1960s. Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands would be admitted as one state, possibly with the Marshall Islands, Palau, and perhaps the Federated States of Micronesia joining with the two U.S. territories. Those three countries were once part of the U.S. Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands and have many military and economic ties to the United States. American Samoa could possibly be part of such a state or even become a county of Hawaii if American Samoa no longer wished to be a territory.
From current states
- Main article: List of U.S. state secession proposals
It is constitutionally possible for new states to be formed by reorganizing current states. No state, however, may be formed within the jurisdiction of another, or by the joining of different states or parts of different states, without the consent of all state legislatures concerned.
Another proposal has been for New York City to secede from New York State (See New York City secession). A similar circumstance has been proposed with the secession of Chicago from Illinois since over a half of the population of Illinois resides in the metropolitan area. Had World War II not intervened, it is possible that the counties of southern Oregon and northern California might have seceded from their respective states to form a new "State of Jefferson". Although often referred to as a possible 51st state, it would in fact have been the 49th, given that Alaska and Hawaii did not become states until 1959. Also there have been brief calls for a 51st state named the state of Lincoln in 1996, 1999, and 2005. The state would be made of Eastern Washington and the Idaho Panhandle.
Similar junctions have attempted to take place in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, which some wish to secede in order to make the state called "Superior".
It has been proposed, usually jocularly, that the eastern counties of Virginia secede in order to make a new state called East Virginia.
Use of "51st State" internationally
Because of their cultural similarities and close alliances with the United States, it is said in jest that some countries are the 51st state.
Afghanistan and Iraq
Because of the amount of American Military involvement in Iraq some have labeled Iraq as the 51st state. One argument in favor of this position is that it was American intervention that established the first freely-elected Iraqi parliament since the rise to power of Saddam Hussein. This position is often forwarded by those who consider the Iraqi government to be a puppet of the U.S. This accusation also stems from the allegation that Iraqi security forces are incapable of operating effectively without U.S support.
Similar observations are often made regarding Afghanistan, although U.S. activity is not as pronounced there, given the more extensively international nature of the peacekeeping forces there, and that the entire country is impoverished in contrast to the United States which is a developed nation.
Canada
In Canada, "the 51st state" (or sometimes "the Maple Leaf state") is an emotional trigger phrase sometimes used in political debates to link an issue in Canadians' minds to the threat of Canadian annexation by the United States. It is generally used in such a way as to imply that if a certain political course is taken, Canada's destiny will be to become "the 51st state".
Becoming "the 51st state" is usually raised either as a potential consequence of adopting policies that propose greater integration or cooperation with the United States (such as Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement in 1988, or the current debate over the creation of a common defense perimeter), or as a potential consequence of not adopting proposals intended to resolve the issue of Quebec sovereignty (such as the Charlottetown Accord in 1992, or the Clarity Act in 1999.)
In the latter cases, the reasoning is usually either that parts of Canada would be so economically damaged by Quebec's separation that joining the United States would be the only option left, or that without Quebec's French language and culture acting as a bulwark, Canada simply wouldn't be able to withstand the cultural pressure toward American statehood.
The phrase is usually used in local political debates, in polemic writing or in private conversations. It is rarely used by politicians themselves in a public context, although at certain times in Canadian history political parties have used other similarly loaded imagery to appeal to Canadians' gut instincts. For example, in the 1988 federal election, the anti-Free Trade Liberals ran an ad in which Tory strategists, upon the adoption of the agreement, slowly erased the Canada-US border from a desktop map of North America. Within days, however, the Tories responded with an ad which featured the border being drawn back on, as an announcer intoned "Here's where we draw the line."
The phrase is also designed to appeal to Canadians' fears of losing power in such a union, implying that all of Canada would have the power of just one state.
It should also be noted that the 1988 Free Trade Agreement was implemented, followed by the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement of 1993, and that the Charlottetown Accord failed. In each case, Canadians chose to follow the course which would supposedly lead to them becoming "the 51st state".
A few fringe groups in Canada have actively campaigned in favour of Canadian annexation by the United States, although they have not attracted much mainstream attention. See Annexationist movements of Canada.
The term has also been used whimsically to refer to individual Canadian provinces. A claim like "Alberta is the 51st state" implicitly suggests that culturally or politically, an individual region has more in common with one or more U.S. states than with another region within Canada. This often means a position further to the political right on economic issues; positions on other domestic issues ranging from official bilingualism to gun control to same-sex marriage are frequently also taken into account in making such comparisons as are economic, geographic and cultural ties to the United States or to an individual U.S. state.
Another humorous suggestion is the Jesusland map, popularized in the U.S. and Canada after the 2004 United States Presidential election, which depicts Kerry-voting "blue states" joining the "United States of Canada", with the remaining Bush-voting "red states" (sometimes together with Alberta) becoming "Jesusland".
In the United States, "the 51st state" when applied to Canada is used as an insult to imply Canada's relative insignificance and Canadians are sometimes disparagingly referred to as "51st staters." The pejorative nature of the term is particularly evident given that Canada already contains thirteen separate jurisdictions (which hold powers similar to U.S. states), and that the territory together is already larger than all current U.S. states combined.
Alberta
- See also: Alberta separatism
Alberta is sometimes referred to as "Canada's Texas"; the two are highly similar in terms of social values (both being socially conservative) and economic base (Alberta is the center of Canada's petroleum industry). A number of Albertans have expressed dissatisfaction at Canada's policies towards the province, particularly with regards to national energy policy and equalization payments. Some Albertans accuse Canada of stealing money from the province's vast oil reserves to distribute to the rest of the country. An August 2005 poll published by the Western Standard stated that 42% of respondents felt that Alberta should explore its options outside of Canada[1]. These include separating from Canada by itself, separating from Canada along with other western provinces or joining the United States of America. The city of Calgary in Alberta has more Americans in it than any other city outside the U.S.
Israel
A number of websites assert or joke that Israel is the 51st state due to the annual funding it receives from the U.S. This is an issue fraught with political and social implications, sometimes involving questions of anti-semitism, and is to some minds central to the conflicts surrounding the Middle-East. One has to note, though, that there are 100,000 US citizens living there.
United Kingdom
The relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom, and the influences of American popular culture and politics on British society, has led some British commentators to suggest that their country has become the de facto 51st state. Some have semi-seriously suggested that the UK should join the U.S., as it would thus become by far the wealthiest and most populous – and therefore the most politically influential state in the Union. American influence, both real and imagined, has attracted widespread criticism in the UK, often with concerns about American influences subsuming both tradition and innovation.
In cultural terms, critics associate American influences with commercialisation and "dumbing down". Economically, supermarkets and fast food retailers are seen as having been imported from the US to the detriment of small businesses. The film The 51st State explores the supposed migration of American criminality to the UK, particular drug trafficing and gangs. Politically, the decline of the British Empire and the growth of American influence is seen by many as inextricably linked, with the loss of Britain's colonies and naval dominance being the price of American help during World War II; others believed Britain was cosying up to the new imperial power in an attempt to retain some influence in world affairs.
The presence of the American airforce and other military faciltiies on British soil in the Cold War was taken as clear evidence of American influence, even as a complete reversal with Britain effectively becoming a colonial posession of the US - some critics borrowed a term from the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, describing Britain as "Airstrip One". Critics on the political right expressed concern at the possible loss of sovereignty, and the apparent lack of reciprocity in the relationship - while Britain supported America in the Korean War, America did not support Britain during the Suez Crisis. Critics on the left were particularly excised by Britain following America's lead in dealing with communist countries. Britain's rhetorical support for the US during the Vietnam War led to mass protests in the UK, although Britain made no military commitments. The view of Britain as America's stooge continued after the end of the Cold War, and was particularly re-awakened by Tony Blair's strong support of President Bush in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which led to Blair being characterised in the British press as "Bush's poodle".
Ireland
Nearly 40,000,000 Americans claim Irish ancestry and the United States and Ireland enjoy close economic, diplomatic, and cultural ties. Ireland today has a comparable standard of living to the United States and Ireland, like the US, has lower taxes compared to other members of the European Union. Today some 100,000 Americans live in Ireland and many Irish citizens are descendents of Irish emigrants to the United States.
Use of "51st State" in popular culture
- This section is incomplete; please add known uses.
- In The Simpsons, Saudi-Israelia (presumably a combination of Saudi Arabia and Israel) is mentioned as the 51st state in the episode "Future-Drama".
- The album The Ghost of Cain by New Model Army features a track called "51st State" which is actually based on the novel by Peter Preston.
- 51st State - A novel by Peter Preston published in 1998, in which the United Kingdom leaves the European Union and becomes the 51st state of the USA. ISBN 0-670-88326-3