Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 August 1895 — “UNITED STATES IS" GOES. [ARTICLE]

“UNITED STATES IS" GOES.

Expression Conveys the Idea of a Na* tional Entity. The modern practice of the State Department at Washington, says the New York Recorder, has been to giro the United States a verb in the singular instead of the plural number, as “the United States is,” not “the United States are.” The practice before the civil war was (to use the plural form, and Mr. Seward was, I think, the first Secretary of State to reverse it Webster and his predecessors always wrote “are.” Mr. Fish, Mr. Evarts, Mr. Blaine, and other Republican premiers followed the Seward style. Mr. Olney, in his recent proclamation concerning Cuban neutrality, returns to the old form. Referring to Spain, he wrote: “A power with which the United States are and desire to remain on terms of peace and amity.” When Mr. Seward made the innovation the idea was, of course, to give additional emphasis to the fact that the United States, as a political entity, Is a nation, and should have a singular verb. Then, for the first time, natior began to be written with a capital “N.” The politicians of the States’ rights school made vigorous protest, and so did the critics, but the author of the “higher law” doctrine cared nothing about either side. He held the pen that wrote the official dispatches and proclamations, and, as there was no way in which his critics could edit them, the Seward grammatical construction had to stay. Mr. Olney has naturally provoked criWclsm by the change he has made. The political part of it Is severely condemnatory, but, as a rule, the grammarians agree with him. A Western journal, in taking his side of the controversy, says: “One cannot say ‘the Southern States is prosperous,’ or ‘the Pacific States possesses great mineral wealth,’ and no more can one say, without violating the rules of grammar, ‘the United States is.’ ’’ The main point of the contention ■is missed in that criticism. In the case of the New England, Southern or Pacific States the plural form is the correct one, because of themselves they do not possess the atribute of national entity. One division of them claimed it at one time, but the pretension had to be abandoned. However, the United States “is” all right, Olney or no Olney.