The current political uneasiness in the US is due to the fact that the federal government has an inordinate amount of control and power over the states and localities of the US. Of course the first order of business should be to reign in the amount of power the federal government, specifically the the executive branch. However, this will only alleviate part of the issue. The purpose of the American system is to give the power of governance to those who consent to be governed by it, and in order to meet that end, more states and localities must exist to allow each person to have a greater influence over the government that governs them.
The main concern of the founders of the United States revolved around a government in which it had little to no interests of the people of whom it governed, and instead was itself a going concern. This was directly due to the fact that the Revolution was a war against a literal foreign power that was taxing the colonies without any regard or representation to the people there. The American system, first borne through the Articles of Confederation, then through the current Constitution, placed excessive checks and balances on the federal government, and gave the federal government narrow responsibilities, namely interstate dispute settling and foreign policy. There is very little in the Constitution in regards to how the individual states themselves would be run. To the founders, the state and locality were where, to use Lincoln’s words, government of the people, by the people, and for the people, would occur.
It was understood back then, as it is now, that each region, state, and even locality, varies by culture, climate, geography, and countless other factors. The idea of a unified American culture is something that has never existed. While there are some general similarities that America broadly shares, this is countered by the fact that there are plenty more differences between the areas of the US. Even in my state of Oregon, there is a stark contrast between the urbanized northern Willamette valley, the mid valley, southern Oregon, the coast, and eastern Oregon. The state of Oregon itself can probably be divided into 5 separate states, with the inhabitants of these 5 new states unaware of any changes to their day to day lives. The people of these localities would craft their governments to fit their specific needs and issues, and would not have to worry about the people who do not live in their area passing laws, or levying taxes for programs that do not benefit them.
There is nothing in the Constitution that limits the number of states to 50. The main reasons that we stopped at 50 have to do with the fact that splitting states apart is an unpopular action to the governments of the states, despite popular support by people within a specific region of said state. The first major instance of a state forming because of a breakaway from an already established state occurred when Vermont broke away from New York after the Revolution. The specific details are interesting to look into, however, the long story short is that Vermont broke away from New York during the Revolution, existed as an independent republic for a number of years, petitioned to be annexed into the US, and eventually was. New York argued that Vermont should not be admitted as a separate state, and instead be reconciled back underneath the territorial jurisdiction of New York. At the time it was a contentious issue, and the only reason Vermont was admitted was due to southern states pushing for the admittance of Kentucky as a slaveholding state, and northern states wishing to keep the equilibrium of equal slave states to equal free states in the senate, agreed to admit Vermont as a separate state.
States are incentivized to keep hold as much territory and population as they can hold. Any attempt to carve territory away would threaten to cut into potential tax revenue that the state could acquire. Furthermore, the areas that wish to breakaway tend to be of minority population sizes, and have little to no political authority in their state government to effectuate a discussion. As such, virtually any attempt the formation of a new state generally occurs with federal involvement, and usually to maintain the balance of power between two factions. The case for the movements in eastern Oregon, eastern Washington, northern California, and others, is bleak. Their parent states have little interest in giving territory or population up, especially considering the current national political climate more or less at a borderline deadlock in the congress and electoral college.
Another avenue is states trading territory between each other. There are very few examples of this, and usually it occurred because two territories were granted statehood at the same time, and the lines on the map were drawn out by the federal government in a way that placed a county that was formerly in one territory, inside another territory. An example of this is Mohave County in Arizona, which the majority of the county, which now resides inside Nevada, was originally a part of the Arizona territory.
The Declaration of Independence, the founding ideals of our nation, explicitly state that the only government which has the legitimacy to govern is one by consent. I would go as far as to say that any “procedure” to secession is not legitimate, and that the people who wish to separate from a state or territory have the unilateral right to do so. Why should the Austin, Texas Metropolitan area be forced to be ruled by the rest of Texas? Why should Upstate New York, eastern Oregon and Washington, Northern California, be forced to cooperate with a larger majority that does not share their interests? Our nation was founded on the idea that people could create a government to suit their needs, and not the needs of those who do not share their interests. The US should have hundreds of states, all experimenting with their own forms of governance.