Careful What You Wish For (Historical Version)

They grow up so fast. One day, they’re just enormous expanses of unmapped land. The next, they’re states, and a hundred and sixty years old.

Wednesday, May 28, was the tenth anniversary of Wisconsin’s Sesquicentennial. The Badger State, Dairy State, home of Titletown and land of LaFollette is 160 years and two days old today.

We can all remember moments – in our lives, or in our children’s – when things turned one way or the other: when, with just a little nudge, we could have turned out differently than we have.

For example:

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 – named because, at that time in history, the Great Lakes were considered “northwest” – set basic rules for shaping and creating new territories and, eventually, states.

The basic lines were thus: an east-west line touching the southernmost point of Lake Michigan; a north-south line intersecting that same point; and the Mississippi River up to its headwaters, and from there to Canada.

If you’re following along with your atlas, you can see that the then-future state of Wisconsin was intended to be bigger, and include Chicago, St. Paul, and a much larger share of the Upper Peninsula.

So what the hell happened?

Never be the last one to the dessert tray. That’s what happened.

In 1809 and 1816, Ohio and Indiana joined the Union. Going first, Ohio’s leaders convinced Congress to push their northern border 10 miles further than the Northwest Ordinance allowed.

Then Indiana did the same.

Two years later, Illinois joined the Union and, as Illinoyances often will, they pushed even further. Their northern border was set 60 miles north of the original line.

Granted, the Northwest Ordinance line would have given them zero access to Lake Michigan – an important economic asset – but, well, cry me a river. Lots of states don’t border Lake Michigan.

Believe it or not, these ad hoc and subjective changes to long-established U.S. policy caused a little tension.

When Michigan applied for statehood in the early 1830s, they demanded their southern border back – the 10-mile thick piece of land given to Ohio decades earlier. The “Toledo Strip.”

Michigan (still a territory) and Ohio stared daggers at each other across that disputed territory. They passed legislation to enforce their claims; formed militias to enforce their legislation; tried to arrest various functionaries of the other state and disrupt official business.

Seriously. It almost came down to a fight.

Finally, Michigan gave up in exchange for more Upper Peninsula. Because of then-unknown mineral deposits there, that turned out to be a good bargain.

For them, anyway.

James Duane Doty – longtime resident of future-Wisconsin and a real piece of work – began agitating for Wisconsin statehood even before the Toledo War. His proposal, a state named Chippewau (and, later, Wiskonsan), extended all the way to the Dakotas, and included a return to the original Northwest Ordinance lines.

That went over like a lead balloon, but set the stage for later.

Doty became territorial governor in 1841, and immediately renewed his push for statehood. He demanded a return to Wisconsin’s “original boundaries,” meaning those in the Northwest Ordinance. Moses Strong, another political leader in Wisconsin, declared that if restoration was denied us, Wisconsin would become a “state out of the Union.”

In 1842, Doty ordered Illinois land commissioners to leave what he called “disputed territory,” the northern part of Illinois, and he held a referendum among that area’s residents – a referendum that came back 2 to 1 in favor of joining Wisconsin.

Okay, so they voted that way because, by joining Wisconsin, they’d escape the taxes Illinois levied to pay public improvement debts. Don't quibble: the people had voted!

Whether Doty expected this to work, I don’t know. It never did. Wisconsin never got that part of Illinois or the U.P. back, and we didn’t get compensation for it as Michigan had. Our northwest border was pushed further in, just as the others were.

Dangit.

Or, maybe it's for the best. If we had gotten Doty's demands, both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton could call Wisconsin – instead of Illinois – home. All those uber-liberal Wellstonians in St. Paul would be giving us, instead of Minnesota, heartburn.

Plus, I'd have grown up a Bears fan.

I guess things turned out pretty well.