Eleven Nations and States' Rights

Every so often, I see article which crop up stating that this or that state (or country, or region, or whatever) should be broken up into smaller blocks. Lately, such articles talk about the EU in this way, though I've seen such things about California (I really like that proposal, by the way, especially if Southern Oregon can join Jefferson) and Texas and even North America or the US.

Concerning the US/North America, at least, some of the problems could be solved if the federal government had a lot less power, and if much of its power was vested in the states instead. The Civil War, and later the 17th Amendment to the Constitution, and even the Cold War and the Culture Wars, pretty much guaranteed that more and more power would start to be concentrated into the hands of the federal government at the expense of the states. It also happens, to some extent, because federal courts in the US end up overturning state laws every time enough liberals whine about this, that, or the other social issue. I think that, all-in-all, both the people of (for example) Georgia, the people of New York, the people of Texas, the people of California, and the people of Mississippi would collectively be much happier if they were allowed to focus more on running their own affairs in-state than having to bicker over running everybody else's.