State v Commonwealth

[dolphinboy]

Why are some US states called ‘states’ and while some US states are called ‘commonwealths’? What is the difference between these two words, and can a state become a commonwealth or vice versa? I presume it has something to do with how it was formed, but why have two separate types of states, or are they functionally the same thing?

[engineer_comp_geek]

Wikipedia is helpful here:

Four of the constituent states of the United States of America officially use the name “Commonwealth”. These states are Kentucky,[1] Massachusetts,[2] Pennsylvania,[3] and Virginia.[4] All four are among the first 15 states to join the Union.

This designation, which has no legal impact, emphasizes that they have a “government based on the common consent of the people”[5] as opposed to one legitimized through their earlier royal colony status that was derived from the monarch of Great Britain. The word commonwealth in this context refers to the common “wealth”, or welfare, of the public[6] and is derived from a loose translation of the Latin term res publica (cf. the 17th-century Commonwealth of England).

More info in the rest of the article here:

Commonwealth (U.S. state)

[friedo]

There are two different meanings of the term “Commonwealth” as it pertains to government in the United States.

The first, as ecg points out, is that four states have chosen to style themselves as Commonwealth of Whatever instead of State of Whatever. This is simply a fancy name and has no legal meaning. Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia have exactly the same status as the other 46 states.

The second meaning has to do with how the federal government classifies unincorporated territories of the United States. Currently, federal law defines a “commonwealth” in this context to be a type of unincorporated but organized (i.e., there has been an Organic Act) territory. Currently, Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands are commonwealths under this definition. Prior to independence, the Philippines were, as well.

[Falchion]

@friedo

The first, as ecg points out, is that four states have chosen to style themselves as Commonwealth of Whatever instead of State of Whatever. This is simply a fancy name and has no legal meaning. Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia have exactly the same status as the other 46 states.

Just to echo this, Virginia, Pennslyvania, and Massachusetts (as I understand) did it to emphasize their rejection of the royal charter. Kentucky did it, becuase it’s just a breakaway county of Virginia.

[dolphinboy]

Thanks everyone. Ignorance fought.

[JRDelirious]

@friedo

Currently, federal law defines a “commonwealth” in this context

Though not directly, although the practical effect is the same: there is no specific article/chapter/section in the US Code that sets forth what makes a territory become a commonwealth. Rather, the accumulated precedent of the statutes and rulings establishing those three polities has defined it (and in fact there’s no statute defining or establishing “unincorporated territory”, that is entirely defined by Supreme Court jurisprudence). The respective legislative/constitutional proceedings involved in creating Home Rule for the Phillippines in 1936 and Puerto Rico in 1952 arrived at naming those bodies politic “Commonwealth of…” as a way to provide political cover by avoiding use of either the words “State” or “Republic”, and by the time the Nothern Marianas came along it had become established as the standard term in US legislation(*) for whatever looked, walked and quacked like that.

(*BTW the terms for Puerto Rico’s polity in Spanish and English are unrelated to one another, again for convenience in being sold to the respective constituencies. It’s a commonwealth in English, an associated free state in Spanish)

[Monty]

The US constitution requires each state to be a republic. Commonwealth for some of them is not an accurate description although it has historic significance. In short: all 50 states are republics.