My mother-in-law directed me to this story a few days ago: an Alabama politician has been looking into what it would take for Greene County (and the seventh Congressional district) to secede from Alabama and form its own state. The 7th district covers the University of Alabama and parts of Birmingham. I doubt those areas would go, but if the seventh district seceded, it would create a state roughly the size of New Jersey with a population larger than Wyoming's. If only the Black Belt counties seceded, they would still have a higher population than Wyoming (it would split the rest of Alabama into non-contiguous chunks, though). I sent the following letter to the Birmingham News:

"The push for the 7th Congressional District to secede from Alabama isn't as crazy as it sounds at first. To put things in perspective, there are about 4.7 million people in Alabama. In 1790, there were about four million people in the entire United States. A quick search suggests that the 7th Congressional District had about 635,000 people as of the 2000 Census, which would have made it one of the largest states in the union just a few years after the Constitution was adopted. A lot of commentators have suggested that the political order has become too large and too unwieldy to be responsive to the citizenry; see in particular the "Secession Week" entries at www.athousandnations.com that led up to Independence Day, particularly the entry about what we can learn from the formation of the Swiss Cantons. The idea that governments would function better if the states were smaller has merit and should not be dismissed out of hand.

Would secession be a wise move for the 7th District? According to the US Constitution, that's for the district itself, Congress, and the State Legislature to decide. It's certainly an idea that deserves serious consideration rather than mockery."