Walking the Post Road

Guilford Green and Church, Guilford,CT

“The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.”

Article I, Section 3 of the United States Constitution. Note that the words “chosen by the Legislature thereof” were superseded by Amendment XVII, which replaced the above words with “elected by the people thereof.”

Distance Walked in the Entry:  4.78 miles

Total Distance Walked in Connecticut:  64.03 miles

Total Distance Walked for this Project (from Boston): 234.6 miles

Notes

  1. 1.My analysis is based on the 2000 US Census, the results of the 2008 and 2010 elections as reported by CNN and the New York Times, the Hammond World Atlas, and the 2010 World Almanac, with an occasional assist from Wikipedia. I created the “state” of New Haven by assuming that the towns settled by members of the New Haven Colony, which were primarily in what are now Fairfield and New Haven Counties, would have remained part of a single colony throughout the following century of Colonial America and into the Revolutionary War, when the New Haven Colony would have been a distinct member of the Continental Congress as were the extant thirteen colonies which eventually formed the United States of America. My purpose is not to advocate for statehood for Southeastern Connecticut but rather to illustrate the absurdity of taking a randomly formed chunk of land and bestowing on each piece of territory an equal number of senators regardless of the population contained within the borders of said “state.”

  2. 2. Henry P. Sage, “Ye Milestones of Connecticut,” in Papers of the New Haven Historical Society, Vol. X (New Haven: Printed for the Society, 1951), pp. 1-101, passim. Specific mention of the Hyland House Stone, number 16, is on page 60.