I'm on a slow internet link at the moment (and my personal library with a possible useful atlas is elsewhere... ironically, where I have that faster internet connection), so I can't currently get the images needed to check, so I'm posting this quick question up to you lot regarding:
Rolczynski is now hard at work trying to correct what he says is a second mistake in North Dakota's constitution. He says the constitution states the Red River forms the entire eastern border of the State. However, Rolczynski points out it's actually the Bois De Sioux River that forms the eastern boundary for 41-miles, from Wahpeton to the South Dakota line.
...does this mean that ND was claiming more or
less territory than (its eastern-neighbours allowing) it should do? i.e. would someone between the BDSR and the RR (presumably in a fork partway along the border, I'm assuming one runs into the other[1]) have been officially subject to both states' overseeing, or to
neither? I could see both of these situations being the subject of attempts to exploit the legal situation, unless and until some corrective legislation makes sure it's irrevocably retroactive.
PS, this is almost another opportunity (certainly I'm taking it as one) to recite the old chestnut of Texas having once[2] been the largest state (by area) in the Union but since the incorporation of Alaska it has become the
second largest state in the US. However, you could always cut Alaska in half, and then it would be... the
third largest state in the US, still lagging behind
both of the Alaska halves...
[1] The alternative is that it gets a name-change, part way down, in which case it probably doesn't
really matter unless you believe in the possibility of an incomplete bounding perimeter.
[2] Technically, I suppose, it was twice. Separated by its time in the Confederacy.