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Twice I've written this week, NEW ENGLAND BORN AND BRED.
I have every right to make my OPINIONS known.
I like how easily accusations of Philly homerism come up and yet these same people say nothing when this guy calls Philadelphia a suburb with no cultural identity because it's too close to new york. I mean honestly. I understand the the philly boosters go too far sometimes and if you look in countless philly threads I'll be the first to call them out for it. But I really do think that a certain amount of it is just responding to the absurd levels of slander and hate leveled against the city on a daily basis here.
Guess what? Every time I say something positive about Philadelphia or defend the city doesn't mean I'm guilty of bias or being a homer, sometimes it's just the truth. Not everything positive about the city of philadelphia is a lie cooked up by C-D boosters.
1787??? I think the date you're actually searching for is 1789, that's when the constitution actually goes into affect. It's signing in 1787 changes nothing and for awhile there was a lot of uncertainty over whether the document would ever govern this country.
Besides if you really want to get down to it, Pennsylvania is a commonwealth, so I guess it STILL isn't a slave free "state".
Those who operate in reality though of course know that even before the constitution, Pennsylvania is one of the 13 original states... you know the ones that the name of this country refers to. Haha i mean if there were no states until 1789, naming this country the United States of America in 1776 was very oddly prescient.
So although legally states did not reach their current form until the adoption of the constitution, Pennsylvania was very much a "state" in 1780 when it abolished slavery and upon doing so it was the first state in the country to do so. Besides even then Vermont doesn't become a state until 1791 so even if you were going by your bizzaro american history, Pennsylvania still beats Vermont in becoming a slave free state.
Vermont is the first sovereign body to outlaw slavery and that is the title that it should hold with pride. I do not wish to strip them of this accomplishment. But I did not say that Pennsylvania was the first "sovereign body" to abolish slavery, I said it was the first state and this statement is correct.
Also I notice you focused solely on this issue in your response and have apparently dropped your claims that Boston was the center of the Abolitionist movement. Perhaps even you realized how ridiculous that claim is now.
Massachusetts is a commonwealth as well...and guess what it's the same status as a state. Just a fancier name I suppose.
I chose Boston, while Philadelphia is a large city it, doesn't have the global city or prominence that I feel Boston has more of with education and business. Also, Philly has to fight for prominence the Mid-Atlantic along with NYC and D.C. but Boston is the hands down most prominent city in New England and has some distance from the other large coastal cities that help it too IMO.
Massachusetts is a commonwealth as well...and guess what it's the same status as a state. Just a fancier name I suppose.
Yea, I was being facetious, even though the technical title of Pennsylvania is the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, it's still obviously one of the 50 american states. Both Massachusetts and Pennsylvania are commonwealths you're right (and to the best of my knowledge the only two states to have that title) which is yes basically another name for a state. My point was that it's not as though Pennsylvania wasn't a state until the Constitution was signed as MassVT tried to claim. Pennsylvania was a state since the creation of this country in 1776 and was a State in 1780 when it became the first state to abolish slavery.
ahhh i had no idea. such an odd distinction to make. Kentucky was once a part of Virginia so I guess it makes sense that they share the same title. On the other hand maybe it's odd that all the other states don't have the title commonwealth. After all MA, PA, and VA and were the most important states at the time the country was created, odd that all the other states didn't follow their lead in how they were named.
Does anyone know why this distinction was made?
When I was in college I used to give history tours in Philadelphia and some foreign visitors thought that the title Commonwealth of Pennsylvania meant that the state was in some way still tied to Great Britain.
ahhh i had no idea. such an odd distinction to make. Kentucky was once a part of Virginia so I guess it makes sense that they share the same title. On the other hand maybe it's odd that all the other states don't have the title commonwealth. After all MA, PA, and VA and were the most important states at the time the country was created, odd that all the other states didn't follow their lead in how they were named.
Does anyone know why this distinction was made?
When I was in college I used to give history tours in Philadelphia and some foreign visitors thought that the title Commonwealth of Pennsylvania meant that the state was in some way still tied to Great Britain.
Don't know about Kentucky but as you said at the time VA, PA, MA were the more powerful states. At the time existed only colonies which were directly under the rule of Great Britain and the king while VA, MA, PA were granted commonwealth status as they were linked to the empire but were granted permission to rule to their own regulations if they so desired.
Currently a commonwealth holds no relevance but before the country separated from the empire it held a distinctive honor for the states that were granted commonwealth status. Once again though, I don't understand why Kentucky is included with the other three.
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