In order to illustrate the traditional competition and rivalry between Michigan and Ohio, the story goes that Woody Hayes, legendary Ohio State Buckeyes football coach, returning from a losing game in Ann Arbor, ran out of gas in Michigan. Rather than buy gas in Michigan he claimed that he pushed his car miles across the state line to Ohio before he would buy gas . This rivalry can be traced to the Toledo War [(1835–1836) or “The Ohio-Michigan War”] that resulted in ceding the “Toledo Strip ” [including the city of Toledo] to Ohio instead of Michigan. In trying to soothe Michigan feelings for the loss of Toledo, Michigan, henceforth Toledo, Ohio, Michigan was offered the Upper Peninsula, which it promptly rejected as lacking in value.
Michigan Governor Mason quickly organized another Constitutional Convention to accept Wisconsin’s Upper Peninsula in return for the loss of Toledo. Like Alaska, it soon overcame its image of being worthless, but Iron Mountain, Wisconsin was not to be. So what should have been upper Wisconsin, the Upper Peninsula, was awarded to Michigan in December 1836, perpetuating its exclusion from the Wisconsin Territory, which had been legislated into existence on April 20, 1836 just eight months previously, and which had included all of the present day states of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa, as well as parts of North and South Dakota, but not the contiguous lost territories of the upper peninsula that were ceded to Michigan, which lies on the other side of Lake Michigan [They beat Wisconsin in the race for lake naming rights as well.]
It was Wisconsin’s luck to be located further west [and just my luck to be born in this universe, in Milwaukee], and settled later. A glance at a map would convince any reasonable person that the Upper Peninsula belongs to Wisconsin just as much as Kuwait belongs to Iraq.
map of contested territory
As a patriotic son of Wisconsin my duty was clear: I formed an extremely exclusive organization, the Badger Liberation Front, which in the tradition of the ultimately elite organizations, so far, has only one member, even without a recruiting drive.
When I propose an effort to liberate the lost territories of the Upper Peninsula, my suggestion is met with amusement, if not outright derision—and for good reason, and that is the point. I presume that the wealth from Iron Mountain benefits the people of Michigan more than the people of Wisconsin, but we have reached the stage where these borders have largely become matters of administrative convenience. States still are adamant about the integrity of their borders, if not their sovereignty, which continues to erode to the Federal Government. One can fare well regardless of which side of the Michigan-Wisconsin border one resides. Wisconsin and Michigan patriotism takes the form of mutually beneficial competition, or as amusement on the playing field. Any attempt to organize a guerrilla force to liberate the Upper Peninsula is doomed from the start because of the federal system we have developed. It is not that there are not disputes. Upper river states pollute the water of down river states; up wind states pollute the air of downwinders. Problems like these may not have been adequately addressed, but would be much more intractable without the federal system.
On a global scale there is no principled, legitimate organization adequate to the task of managing planetary affairs and resolving disputes so that “liberation fronts” are laughably unthinkable. I don’t consider myself too parochial to suggest that the American federal system, with limitations on the powers of government, separation of powers with checks and balances, and codified human rights, would be a good model, for starters, to extend to the globe.
I then moved to California and at 15 I joined the California Air National Guard. With our monopoly on nuclear bombs [The University of California administers the nuclear bomb labs at Livermore and Los Alamos] and our military superiority, I am sure that we could recover the “lost waters” of the Colorado River that Arizona is stealing. Same story, same message. Ridiculous? Yes, I know the Supreme Court divided the disputed water between the states when negotiations faltered. However, Mexico didn’t fare well and considered suing in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) [The ICJ was formed in the aftermath of The Great War (“to end all war”, aka WWI) as part of the League of Nations system.] After being convicted for state terrorism and ordered to pay reparations , the US government legally withdrew from the jurisdiction of the ICJ as an exercise of its sovereignty, but illegally tried to make it retroactive, and never paid the reparations. The US can no longer be sued by Mexico in the ICJ. By contrast, California has not tried to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.
Peace requires the rule of law and law requires institutions adequate to the task. The success that has been achieved in the US needs to be parlayed globally.
Dr. Roger Dittmann
President, U. S. Federation of Scholars and Scientists
Professor of Physics Emeritus, California State University
