A few nights ago on the Tonight Show, Ashley Judd, who lived and schooled in Kentucky, commented that Kentucky was not a state but a commonwealth; that 2 "states" were not actual states but commonwealths. I was intrigued by that new found information and somebody on another board pointed me to this link:
United States Commonwealths where I read the following:
Quote:
Officially the following are commonwealths, not states:
Kentucky
Massachusetts
Pennsylvania
Virginia
In common usage all these are normally referred to as being states.
The Northern Marianas Islands in the Pacific and Puerto Rico in the Caribbean are also commonwealths.
Dictionaries and encyclopedias that I have consulted offer two definitions of the word commonwealth:
A state in which the government functions with the common consent of the people. This definition would seem to me to be virtually identical to that of a democracy. One source describes the USA and its individual states as being commonwealths in this sense but with only the states listed above officially designating themselves as such. The term would therefore appear to be merely a description and to have little or no precise meaning.
A fixed but flexible association of states, as in the British Commonwealth and the Commonwealth of Independent States.
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All of this leads me to wonder:
Why are those 4 "states" called commonwealths rather than states?
If Puerto Rico is a commonwealth rather than a state and is not called a state (aside from being referred to as the 51st state, which it isn't), why are those 4 commonwealths called states when they really aren't states?
Puerto Ricans do not pay income tax and do not have the right to vote in American elections. They have a representative in the House of Representatives, but even he isn't elligable to vote on anything, even including matters that affect his constituents.
Presumably, logically based on their non taxation and lack of true representation, Puerto Ricans cannot run for higher office such as President of the United States. So, why do people in Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia pay taxes if they are not officially a state, and why do they have voting rights as commonwealth citizens the same as Puerto Rico is, while Puerto Ricans do not?
Why can a person from the four listed commonwealths vote for president and run for president, while a person from the commonwealth of Puerto Rico can not?
Does anyone know the answers to these questions? I surely do not.
United Commonwealths of America-4 States Are Not "States"
