Forgotten secession: when the original 13 tried to split.

In 1812-13 there was a movement in the original thirteen states to secede from the rest of the nation—an idea first championed by a guy named John Lowell of Massachusetts. You have to admit there was some logic to this. As the United States expanded, the original 13 states had less and less influence. Even a third grader can do the math: in the late 1700s, the two Massachusetts senators made up nearly 8 percent of the US Senate. Today, it's just 2 percent. Lowell thought his state had less and less control of its own affairs, so he advocated expelling the western states from the Union. The governors of both New York and Maryland liked the idea. Lowell laid out his argument in a tract with the less-than-snappy title: Thoughts in a series of letters, in answer to a question respecting the division of the states. By a Massachusetts farmer. The idea was popular in certain influential circles, but eventually it died out. Maybe if Lowell had come up with a more catchy title... like "Think Small." You can read more about it  here  or read all of Lowell's original tract here.