This video was made possible by Skillshare. Start learning new skills for free for two
months at skl.sh/hai28. North Dakota is the type of place most people
don’t know much about—if you were to ask a random person on the street to name a fact
about North Dakota, they’d probably say to you, “hey man, it’s really weird that
you just came up to me on the street and demanded that I tell you a fact about North Dakota.” If you really pushed them, the best answer
they’d be likely to muster is that North Dakota is located north of South Dakota. But despite its oft-overlooked status, North
Dakota is much more than just a sparsely populated hat that sits on South Dakota’s head. It has the nation’s lowest unemployment
rate, it’s where the world’s largest hamburger was eaten, it produces most of the wheat that’s
in American-made pasta, and there’s probably other interesting stuff about it too beyond
the first three Google results for, “North Dakota Facts.” For example, until recently, it may not have
been a state at all. To understand why, we have to first look at
Article VI of the US Constitution, which says, “The Members of the several State Legislatures,
and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States,
shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution.” While that might be less readable than Moby
Dick, what that section means is actually pretty simple: state officers from all three
branches of government—legislative, executive, and judicial—have to take an oath that they
will support the US Constitution, but here’s the problem: until recently, the North Dakota
state constitution didn’t require its executive officers—like the Governor—to take an
oath of office. That may seem like a minor issue, but if there’s
one thing autocorrect has taught us, it’s that small mistakes can have a big impact. Because of that omission, some experts argue
that North Dakota didn’t actually meet the qualifications for statehood, which means
that, until the state constitution was fixed, it was never actually a state. Now, to be clear, not everyone agrees with
that argument. After all, when it comes to the US Constitution,
getting everyone to agree is kind of like trying to have a nuanced debate in a YouTube
comments section: it’s scientifically impossible. Some Constitutional scholars argue that while
North Dakota’s state constitution did violate Article VI, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t
a state, as violating Article VI doesn’t affect Congress’ power to admit states to
the Union, which is laid out in Article IV, which says, “New States may be admitted
by the Congress into this Union; but no new States shall be formed or erected within the
Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States,
or parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as
well as of the Congress.” That section gives Congress the power to make
new states, and says not to put a state inside of another state, or to combine or separate
states without their permission. If only the British and French believed in
this whole, “not dividing pre-existing states,” thing when the took out the crayolas and drew
a bunch of arbitrary borders around the Middle East leading to much of the ethnic and geopolitical
conflict of tod… oh, sorry, too much? Those aforementioned restrictions are the
only ones on Congress’ state-making power, except, of course, for the unofficial rule
of, “no shirt, no shoes, too many democrats, not enough swing votes, no statehood.” Damn, who would have thought that this politics-related
video would get so… political? Given that Congress’ power to make states
is so broad, the question is, because Congress said North Dakota is a state, does that make
it a state regardless of whether or not it violated the Constitution? Normally, the answer would most likely be
yes—it’s still a state. After all, states violate the US Constitution
sort of all the time. When they do, there’s a lawsuit, and it
gets taken to the courts. For example, if Texas amended their state
constitution to require everyone to always root for the Dallas Cowboys, that would violate
freedom of expression, and thus the US Constitution, and the Supreme Court would strike it down—but
that would just mean that people in Texas don’t have to cheer for the Cowboys, not
that Texas wasn’t a state. In other words, the argument goes, the issue
of statehood and Constitutional compliance are separate. But here’s where things get tricky: North
Dakota’s statehood issue doesn’t stop with Article VI. See, the original law that made North Dakota
a state was something called the Enabling Act of 1889, and Section Four of that Act
declared that in order to become a state, North Dakota must make a state constitution—which
they did—but also that, “The [state] constitution shall not be repugnant to the Constitution
of the United States,” which is where we run into problems. That’s because, by violating Section VI
of the US Constitution, one could argue that the North Dakota state constitution was, in
fact, “repugnant to the Constitution of the United States.” It just depends on your definition of repugnant—something
I might call repugnant, other people might call, “Taco Bell.” But, if we believe that violating Article
VI is sufficiently repugnant, that would mean that not only did North Dakota violate Article
VI of the US Constitution, but by doing so, it also failed to meet the qualifications
for statehood set out by the Enabling Act of 1889, which was supposed to make it a state
and because of that, its statehood has always been illegitimate. Ultimately, the issue is now moot—a North
Dakota historian named John Rolczynski noticed the problem in 1995 and spent the next 17
years lobbying the state legislature—or, I suppose, what was then the territorial legislature—to
fix it. Eventually, in 2011, a North Dakota legislator
took up his cause, and got a constitutional amendment put on the ballot, which was approved
in 2012. So not to worry—North Dakota is definitely
a state now, which means we can all go back to treating it the way we always have: ignoring
it completely. You know, all of these problems probably could
have been evaded if only the writers of the North Dakota constitution were just… better. See, part of the issue was probably that back
then, they didn’t have Skillshare. That’s because Skillshare’s writing courses,
whether Storytelling 101, Creative Writing for All, or Creative Nonfiction, each help
you hone your writing skills which can help you in work, at school, or just with your
own projects. Effective writing is just one of countless
skills you can learn with any of Skillshare’s tens of thousands of courses. A membership to Skillshare is quite reasonable,
it works out to less than $10 a month, but by going to skl.sh/hai28, you’ll get two
months completely for free, and you’ll even be helping support Half as Interesting.
I remember when this story broke out. It was mentioned once on the local news and that was about it. Honestly can't remember if I voted yes or no on it.
Combine it with South Dakota and give it’s Senators to CA and TX.