By Curtis W. Caine, Sr., M.D.
Pop Quiz: How many United States of America are there?
Answer: “That’s simple. Everybody knows there is just one.”
Grade: F. Wrong! Here’s why.
You will recall that the original thirteen Colonies in America were within the British Empire — in subjection to the King. When they Declared themselves Independent (free of the Crown) by issuing their Charter, the Declaration of Independence, they became the original thirteen separate, independent States in America — subject only to God and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. But they had to win a bloody War to actually make real the independence they had declared. Representatives of those thirteen States then made a contract among themselves to guarantee that their hard-won “Blessings of Liberty” would always be secure and that slavery to a central tyrannical government would never happen again — ever. When each State ratified the Constitution (their ByLaws), a Union of the thirteen States was formed. Today, we are a Union of fifty States in America. The commonly used phrase, “The United States of America”, is an abbreviated, shortened wording of “These Fifty United States of America”. The “The” in the truncated version is plural.
The individual people voluntarily joined to form their individual State governments (plural); and those individual States (plural) voluntarily joined together to form a federation of States (plural).
Folks living below the Rio Grande River understand this and they call the country to their north “Los Estados Unidos”. “Los” (plural); not “el” (singular). Romanic Spanish is a more precise language than is Anglo Saxon English.
Although our English word “the” is both singular and plural, as well as masculine and feminine, we have to judge which one it is by the context each time it is used. For emphasis, to remind everyone of this important distinction of plurality, I make a special effort to use the word “These” when referring to These United States.
I was recently asked “why?” and challenged to cite my reference for employing “These.” My complying answer: “The writers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, themselves, are the connoisseurs. There cannot be anyone more adroit on this subject than they.”
At least sixteen times in the Declaration of Independence (which cites 27 facts that compelled separation from The Crown of England) and upwards of two dozen times in the Constitution of The(se) United States, the words “Colonies”, “United States”, and references to them are overtly, clearly, and specifically couched in the plural — not a single entity, but a Union of separate and distinct entities. A few examples are quoted here:
1. Declaration — paragraph 2 — “…these Colonies…” and “…these States…”
2. Declaration — Fact 7 — “…these States…”
3. Declaration — Fact 11 — “…our Legislatures.”
4. Declaration — Fact 20 — “…these Colonies…”
5. Declaration — Fact 21 — “…our Charters…”
6. Declaration — Fact 22 — “…our own Legislatures…”
7. Declaration — last paragraph —- “…these Colonies…”; “…these United Colonies…”; “…free and independent States; that they are…”; “…between them…”; “…as Free and Independent States, they have…”; and “…which Independent States may…”
8. Constitution — Article II, Section 1, paragraph 7 — “The President…shall not receive within…the Period for which he shall have been elected…any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them (plural)”
9. Constitution — Article III, Section 3, paragraph 1 — “Treason against the United States (plural), shall consist only in levying war against them (plural), or adhering to their (plural) Enemies…”
10. Constitution — Article VI, paragraph 3 — “..the members of the several State Legislatures…”; and “…of the several States….”
But there is a more compelling reason to constantly and consistently prefix “these” to United States than just being proper grammatically and semantically. Using a singular “The” is popularly understood to imply (and subliminally insinuates) that there has always been and there still is just one United State (singular) and it is headquartered in Washington, D.C. to govern all fifty states as provinces. Of course, in actuality, the founding States created the Union and delegated to that Union only a specific few of their own prerogatives, retaining all of the rest to themselves and to the people. Washington, D.C. dictatorially running America in every detail was not one of those granted powers.
This is what Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1821 about the matter: “When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the centre of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.”
In the ensuing 220 years, those desirous of being the ones to wield the forbidden power of central planning and control have usurped the reins with impunity, partles oblivious to the plurality of the “The” in front of United States.
Replacing “These” for “The” (along with resurrecting the Ninth and Tenth Amendments) can be the attention getting 2×4 that dramatically jolts us back into this reality, making all of us realize that the States are not to be abjectly servile to Washington D.C., but the other way around. Much of this disastrous metamorphosis and devolution has pivoted on the disenfranchisment of the States by the Seventeenth Amendment which was deceptively promoted and deviously ratified in 1913. The Seventeenth Amendment changed the selection of Senators from appointment by their State Legislatures to popular vote — changing These United States from the stable Republic with its intended state-federal checks and balances, into the whim-and-fancy, centralized, simple majority rule, leading to oppressive, unchecked democracy (a despotic tyranny of the majority) which the original Constitution forbade.(1) Even a cursory, impartial assessment of America today substantiates the contention that the States, the creators of the Union and therefore its master, have been emasculated and relegated to subordinate status because one of the major safeguards was destroyed by the Seventeenth Amendment.
The majority of the difficulties that now trouble America are due to violation by the federal government of the Constitutional restrictions the founding States placed on their creature, the central government, stemming in large part, I conclude, on the misconception most Americans have been led to believe that Washington is omnipotent — when, in truth of course, it is not.
James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, wrote: “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.(2)
I maintain that this improper pecking order is fostered by the general belief that The United States is singular; which belief has, in turn, been subversively foisted on us by those who want us to believe it, in order to empower themselves.
To help restore the organization table to its rightful order, I propose that we all make a point of using “These United States of America” on every occasion. Or, better yet, for constant emphasis, using the phrase “These Fifty American States in Union” or “The Union of These Fifty States in America.” When we do and we are asked to explain why, as I recently was, a golden opportunity is presented for the above facts to be convincingly used to recruit another convert to our cause of reasserting our Republic.
Ideas have consequences. The deed is conceived in the thought. But for that thought to gestate, mature, and be born as a deed, we must go through diligent, possibly prolonged, perhaps painful labor to deliver it.
The Union of These Fifty States in America is a representative Constitutional Republic, not a mass (and thus tyrannic) democracy. Let’s keep it that way.
Final Exam: How many United States of America are there?
Answer: “The answer is self evident. As anyone can plainly see, obviously there are fifty.”
Grade: A+. Perfect score. You got it!
References
1. Caine C. The Seventeenth Amendment. Medical Sentinel 1997;2(1):32-33.
2. Madison J, Jay J, Hamilton A. The Federalist Papers.New American Library, NY, 1961, p. 292.
Dr. Caine is an anesthesiologist in Jackson, Mississippi, and a member of the Editorial Board of the Medical Sentinel. His e-mail address is [email protected].
Originally published in the Medical Sentinel 1997;2(3):108-109. Copyright © 1997 Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS).
(This column on the Constitution appears in the Medical Sentinel to remind us that it is the unConstitutional (and thus illegal) activities in medicine and all other facets of our lives that have trampled on and outlawed our God-endowed freedom and liberty.)
