Not Stately Enough Trivia Quiz

Answer: Superior

The first attempt to create the State of Superior (or perhaps the State of Ontonagon at the time) was in 1858, when a convention in Ontonagon was held for that reason, and included parts of Wisconsin and Minnesota. In 1897, a piece of Wisconsin was also included in another proposal that went nowhere.

In 1962, five years after the Michigan peninsulas were finally physically connected by the five-mile Mackinac Bridge, an official petition hit the Michigan Legislature sponsored by the U.P. (Upper Peninsula) Independence Association, but gained less than 50% of the signatures needed to earn a referendum on the bill.

Answer: Franklin

In August 1784, members of the Franklin area (including twelve of the easternmost present-day Tennessee counties) went through the process of seceding from North Carolina and elected most necessary officials. In May 1785, with the US under the Articles of Confederation, it earned seven of the nine votes required to gain a 2/3 majority in order to become a state, with those votes coming from Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Georgia.

After that failure, members created an independent republic in December 1785, but North Carolina moved troops into the region the next year. Finally, Governor John Sevier was defeated on February 29, 1788, and Franklin was again absorbed into North Carolina.

Answer: Lincoln

Between 1868 and 1871, several plans were proposed both in Texas and the US Congress on how to divide the new state into even more states following the Civil War before it was reabsorbed into the Union. Elisha Pease proposed creating Texas, East Texas, and West Texas, which became the most popular plan. William Wallace Mills wanted to simply sell West Texas to the United States for an undisclosed amount, although it was likely he was just trying to present an alternate plan to weaken the idea of Jefferson. Andrew J. Hamilton also wanted the three-state plan, but with a different border at the Brazos River. Then, James Newcomb came up with the final plan to split Texas at the Colorado River into Texas and Lincoln, with Lincoln being the southwestern portion. This plan was eventually proposed to Congress.

That bill never made it out of the committee stage, although a similar bill was put forth to Congress 1870 to split Texas into three territories, with the land to be named Lincoln now named Matagorda, and everything east of the San Antonio River to be named Jefferson, with the remainder being Texas. Neither Congress nor Texas acted on this plan. Finally, Edmund Davis in Texas proposed a split into the maximum four allotted states, simply splitting the state into a northern, eastern, western, and southern portion, which gained no traction.

Answer: Wyoming, South Dakota, and Montana

The "state" of Absaroka may have had the most official things happen during its short existence as compared to other failed state proposals. It wanted to break off from Wyoming, South Dakota, and Montana during the last stages of the Depression, as they claimed that President Roosevelt's New Deal was leaving them out. A.R. Swickard appointed himself Governor and had license plates distributed with a picture of a woman who was supposedly "Miss Absaroka 1939." It also managed to have a visit from a foreign dignitary, as King Haakon VII of Norway was there (who was officially visiting Wyoming, but happened to be in Absaroka). Of course, nothing actually came of the plan.

Answer: Westsylvania

Westsylvania, West Virginia and Pennsylvania combined (or simply West Pennsylvania in 1776) may have been inspired by the revolutionary spirit filling the colonies, but Congress was having none of it. Neither Virginia (which had claims through modern-day Illinois) nor Pennsylvania wanted to give up any of their western claims, and Congress ignored the petition sent to them by the hopeful residents of Westsylvania.

It did not get better during the war, as Virginia and Pennsylvania settled a land dispute that set three Virginian counties in Pennsylvania, leaving the residents to find out sometime later.

However, as the war neared its end Hugh Henry Brackenridge convinced the Pennsylvanian government to declare that further attempts at secession to form a separate state would be charged as treason, and pushes for the new state dwindled over the next few years.

Answer: World War II

Gilbert Gable, the mayor of Port Orford, Oregon, came up with the plan of uniting rural areas of southern Oregon and northern California in what would have been the 49th state (Alaska was not admitted until 1959). Jefferson was the name chosen over Bonanza, Del Curiskiyou, Discontent, Orofino, and Siscurdelmo in a contest held by the "Siskiyou Daily News." However, after being elected to the position of governor, Gable died on December 2, 1941, and five days later American minds everywhere turned towards the war effort with the attack on Pearl Harbor. With World War II, any hope that Jefferson would come to be died.

Answer: Tennessee

Scott County, one of fourteen Tennessee counties to border Kentucky, which stayed with the Union, was led by slave-owning Andrew Johnson to do the same. When Tennessee joined the Confederacy, they proclaimed their own secession from the state, although never recognized by the Union, Confederacy, or Tennessee itself.

The mountainous region then turned to guerilla warfare against their "former" state, and also allowed General Ambrose Burnside to pass through on his way to seize Knoxville. After 105 years of "independence," the State of Scott finally petitioned Tennessee for readmission in 1986, and was accepted back into the state.

Answer: Sequoyah

In 1905, the Creek, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole tribes met in Muskogee, Oklahoma, in order to draw up a constitution to create Sequoyah in order to guarantee a state for Native Americans. They made the constitution and elected representatives to visit Congress, but when they arrived their proposal was rejected when more powerful Eastern states pressured President Theodore Roosevelt into disallowing the state, fearful that the Indian and Oklahoma Territories would result in two separate states, and therefore more representatives in Congress for Western states.

In the end, the two territories joined together to create Oklahoma in 1907, helped in no small measure in creating a constitution by members of the Indian Territory.

Answer: A river

When the First Constitutional Convention met in the planned capital of Wheeling, they almost immediately decided that the name Kanawha, taken from the Kanawha River, did not adequately show their continuing allegiance to the Virginia name. When choosing a new name, they had to decide between the eventual winner West Virginia, Western Virginia, Vandalia, New Virginia, Columbia, Augusta, and Allegheny.

After West Virginia became a state in 1863, Charleston became the state capital, followed by reverting back to Wheeling in 1870, before it went again back to Charleston, where it stayed.

Answer: Mormons

Brigham Young moved his people west during the 1840s, and intended to create a huge state just for the Mormons. The way it was planned, Deseret would have encompass modern-day Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Idaho, Oregon, California, and most of Nevada or Utah. In 1849, Young planned on applying for territory status, until he realized that both California and New Mexico were already applying for statehood. They quickly drafted a new constitution and sent it to Washington D.C. Not wanting to throw out of balance the number of senators between free and slave states, President Taylor proposed that Deseret and California join together as one state. California decided it was not in its interests as Mormons were culturally different as well as the difficulty of governing such a large state.

Congress created the Utah Territory in 1850, and in 1851 Young was elected governor. The new territory's legislature enacted the proposed laws of Deseret as its own, and three times over the next 25 years they also attempted to write a new constitution for Deseret, but using the boundaries of the Utah Territory. Eventually, the creation of the first transcontinental railroad brought many non-Mormons to the area, and the idea of a Mormon-only state slowly faded.