What's the difference between a Commonwealth and a State?

Question

Kentucky is a Commonweath and Ohio is a state, what would be the difference between them? Virigina is the only other Commonwealth I know of.

Answer 1

There are four U.S. states that are officially known as commonwealths - Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Massachusetts. Despite the difference in name, there is no difference in the relationship or governance of a state versus a commonwealth.

The difference between these commonwealths and the other 46 states is in name alone -- they elected to call themselves commonwealths, a term drawn from political theory. The About.com lawyer assured us that, legally, there is no difference between a state and these four commonwealths.

There is, however, another form of commonwealth. The ever-helpful Dictionary.com offers this alternate definition: a "self-governing, autonomous political unit voluntarily associated with the United States, namely, Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands." The degree of that dependency varies from place to place, but let's consider Puerto Rico as an example.

There are a few major differences between Puerto Rico and a typical American state:

The Internal Revenue Code does not apply to Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico has no voting representation in Congress.
Puerto Rican citizens are not allowed to vote in presidential elections.
Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens; they pay social security, can receive federal welfare, and can serve in the armed forces. But they don't pay federal taxes, and they don't vote in presidential elections.
So far, they've voted to keep it that way. Consider it a limited partnership.

Answer 2

Pennsylvania is another commonwealth, and I believe Mryland is also. It is simply the way these states chose to be termed. There is really no difference other than the word.

Answer 3

PA is a commonwealth as well. I think it has to do with how the state was founded.

Answer 4

The truth is that there is nothing different between the designations today