Come up with a better name, Colorado

Voters in some northeast Colorado counties recently cast their votes to secede from the state and form a new state: "Northern Colorado."

"The nation's newest state, if rural Colorado residents had their way, would be about the size of Vermont but with the population of a small town spread across miles of farmland," wrote the Associated Press. "There wouldn't be civil unions for gay couples, legal recreational marijuana, new renewable energy standards, or limits on ammunition magazines.

"After all, those were some of the reasons five counties on the state's Eastern Plains voted on Election Day to approve the creation of a 51st state in the first place."

As the AP article goes on to say, the vote doesn't officially mean a whole heck of a lot; it was more of a symbolic gesture than anything, spurred by a population that feels like the leaders in the capital have lost touch with their needs.

This is not a new concept; not by a long stretch. In fact, here in North Carolina (well, in an area that USED to be part of North Carolina), we have seen a new state rise up out of frustration, only to dissolve into the annals of history. And though it was never officially recognized by Washington, the short-lived State of Franklin did, in fact, live. (And it still kinda-sorta lives today, thanks to entities like the State of Franklin Bank, based in Johnson City, Tennessee.)

In fact, Franklin (or "Frankland") was a pioneer (pun intended) in the whole "let's secede out of frustration" thing. When it was founded in 1784, Franklin leaders had hopes that it would become the 14th state. It even had a capital (Jonesborough) and a Congress. From Wikipedia:

Franklin was never admitted into the union. The extra-legal state existed for only about four and a half years, ostensibly as a republic, after which North Carolina re-assumed full control of the area.
The creation of Franklin is novel, in that it resulted from both a cession (an offering from North Carolina to Congress) and a secession (seceding from North Carolina, when its offer to Congress was not acted upon, and the original cession was rescinded).

In fact, if any new state ever had a chance to make it, it was probably Franklin. But, alas, it wasn't meant to be, and the territory of Franklin became part of a real, honest-to-God new state: Tennessee.




So sorry to dash your hopes, Colorado -- excuse me, NORTHERN Colorado. Speaking of ... couldn't you have come up with a better name? I understand a lot of the good names (Franklin, Jefferson) are taken, but you can do better than that.

After all, as Will Truman recently wrote, this new state "wouldn’t, however, have any good postal initials, since NC is taken."

Darn tootin.'

(Click here to read our sister blog's take on the idea of North Carolina counties seceding.)


Images from Wikipedia.