<I think there is now legislation that will allow provinces to legally separate from Canada if they get a majority vote to do so.

Yeah the South in the US also had a right to secede from the Union. There was of course much more going on at the time too, but had the Union allowed the southern States to secede it would surely have been disasterous for the South. In line of thinking as Mary Anne did, consider if the Confederacy were allowed to be soveriegn.

The Confederate States of America is formed with Jefferson Davis as President. No war was fought, Lincoln simply let them go. As more territories get settled out west, the population rises, and eventually must make a decision to lobby for statehood in either the USA or CSA. A third option would be to form their own nation, but only happened in Texas, which already had to fight for independance from Mexico. It recieved help from both the CSA and USA, but in the end decided to just be Texas.

States settled mainly by people from the USA will generally by default apply for statehood with the USA, and vice versa. Where it gets tricky are in some of the border staes like Missouri. Even after it joins one of the nations, there is always a pull from the losers to secede to the other. Violence is very common in these states, and governors are assassinated fairly regulary.

Years later, in the CSA, some of the borderline states vote to declare slavery illegal. It eventually goes to the Supreme court of the CSA. The CSA confims that slavery is indeed constitutional. The states try to secede to the Union. The CSA, must now decide to either send troops to bring the states into submission or grant them the same rights afforded them. Eventually the CSA allows them to secede, and the USA luke warmly accepts them into the union like the prodigal son. industrialization takes hold in the USA, the USA prospers. The CSA struggles to meet its need, and can't compete economically. Slave revolts and price gouging by the USA eventually lead to the disbanding of the CSA and all of the states are returned to the Union. Except Texas of course, but then they never left it. :)

-Steve G.