I recently moved from Minnesota to Washington, D.C. Not only did I leave behind 10,000 lakes, it seems I left the United States as well. No, I’m not talking about the drive for District statehood. I’m wondering why my new home, Virginia, is called a commonwealth instead of a state. Is there a difference between Virginia–and the commonwealths of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky–and the commonwealth of Puerto Rico? If there’s no legal difference, how come Puerto Rico doesn’t get a star on the U.S. flag? –Tim Walker, Washington, D.C.
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Oh, fine, Timsy, stir up the revolutionaries. Fact is, in this country we’ve got commonwealths and then we’ve got commonwealths. Old-style CWs, including VA, MA, PA, and KY, hark back to a 17th-century notion of the state (generic, not U.S.) as common enterprise–you know, all for one, one for all, that kind of stuff. The proto-Virginians at Jamestown referred to their undertaking as a commonwealth virtually from the day the colony was founded in 1607.
It was apparently the latter brand of commonwealth that Washington brain-trusters had in mind when they pondered the future of Puerto Rico in the 1940s. “Commonwealth” status was the perfect have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too compromise, signifying that Puerto Rico was sort of independent but not really and sort of a state but not really that either. Don’t worry about the Old Dominion, though. Legally the old-style commonwealths are indistinguishable from states, and from the standpoint of terminological coolness you’ve got states beat by a mile.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): illustration/Slug Signorino.
