Commonwealth (United States)
- This article is about U.S. States that designate themselves as "Commonwealths". For usage relating to U.S. insular areas, see Commonwealth (U.S. insular area). For other uses of the term, see Commonwealth.
Four states in the United States officially designate themselves Commonwealths: Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.
In these cases, this is merely a name and has no constitutional impact. They thus emphasize that they have a "government based on the common consent of the people", instead of a government legitimized through their earlier Royal Colony status that was derived from the King of England. The transition occurred in 1776, when the need arose to express a change in their legal status consistent with the Revolutionary War. Kentucky was a county of Virginia at this time, but chose to retain the Commonwealth descriptor when it became a separate state. While the term "commonwealth" has the same legal and economic meaning as "state", the four regions that chose to designate themselves commonwealths probably did so as a reference to the earlier Commonwealth period in England which ended in 1660, when that nation was not ruled by a king.
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Commonwealth of Kentucky
See Kentucky as a Commonwealth.
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Massachusetts is officially termed "The Commonwealth of Massachusetts" by its constitution.
In the era leading up to 1780, when the state Constitution was ratified, the word Commonwealth was the preferred term among political writers for a whole body of people constituting a nation or state. There may have been some anti-monarchic sentiment informing the use of the word Commonwealth, which was also used to mean "republic."
The name "Commonwealth" for Massachusetts can be traced to the second draft of the state Constitution. The previous draft of the Constitution, and all acts and resolves up to 1780, had used the name "State of Massachusetts Bay." The second draft was written by John Adams and ratified in 1780. In Adams's draft, "Part Two, Frame of Government," states, "…that the people… form themselves into a free, sovereign, and independent body politic, or state by the name of The Commonwealth of Massachusetts." In his "Life and Works," Adams wrote:
- "There is, however, a peculiar sense in which the words republic, commonwealth, popular state, are used by English and French writers, who mean by them a democracy, a government in one centre, and that centre a single assembly, chosen at stated periods by the people and invested with the whole sovereignty, the whole legislative, executive and judicial power to be included in a body or by committees as they shall think proper." [1]
After the adoption of the Constitution, the state has always been officially called The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, although residents commonly refer to it both as "the state" and as "the Commonwealth."
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
A detailed history describing the origins of Pennsylvania's of government, including its designation as a Commonwealth from colonial times, is available from the Secretary of State's office.
