The nine stars featured on the flag of the United Commonwealth represent the Faithful Nine
Location of the Faithful Nine prior to the Union Treaty
The Faithful Nine is the official designation of nine states of the American Continental Republic within the United Commonwealth which were historically states of the United States. They include Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. The term was first described following the War of Contingency, when the United Commonwealth of America succeeded the former United States. The Treaty of Salinas forced the United Commonwealth to relinquish its claims over the historic U.S. states outside of the nine states which remained under Union control during both the American Civil War and the War of Contingency. Virginia, Missouri and portions of Tennessee also remained part of the United Commonwealth, but were states that either joined the Confederate States during the American Civil War and/or participated in secession during the War of Contingency. Under Federalist rule, the government centralized power in Chicago as a unitary state and dissolved the state governments of each of the nine, replacing them with governing authorities with devolved powers instead. The historic state divisions were retained, thereby preserving the boundaries of each state. The term fell out of use by the 1890s, as historic state identity was replaced by national and regional identity instead.
During the Continental Revolutionary War, the Continentalists rose in power and usurped control from the Federalists. The Continentalists achieved victory and adopted the Union Treaty, creating the United Commonwealth of Continental States, while the Federalists moved the United Commonwealth of America's exiled government to the Antilles. Under Continentalist rule, the United Commonwealth's territory included a number of former independent states whose territories were bound within the original United States. The majority of states and their original boundaries were preserved, with the Faithful Nine states becoming part of the American Continental Republic, one of the three continental republics of the United Commonwealth. Between the 1920s and the 1940s, the territory which encompassed the Faithful Nine remained under de facto direct control and administration of Chicago, and lacked organization as states. The term "Faithful Nine" was reintroduced into colloquial usage and was promoted by the Continentalist government to romanticize the past and purported fidelity of the nine historic states. It was proposed that the Faithful Nine republics were to be granted additional rights and privileges as special states compared to the other principal republics, although this idea was ultimately rejected.
The term "Faithful Nine" was first attested to in the aftermath of the War of Contingency, by The Unionist, an Indianapolis-based newspaper which referred to the United Commonwealth as a "union of faithful nine and three derelicts" (the Faithful Nine, plus the reclaimed states of Missouri, Tennessee, and Virginia) in the February 3, 1878 edition of the paper. The term was later repeated in a government-produced gazetteer in 1879 which described the United Commonwealth as a union which was composed of "nine faithful states". Acceptance for the term grew during the 1880s as the Federalist government consolidated power in Chicago and promoted an ideology of irredentism and American reunification. The Cult of Lincoln was a civic religion the Federalists created to bolster patriotism across the nation, and spiritualized the Faithful Nine as the sole defender of "American liberty and freedom" in the midst of "North American darkness". By 1881, while the Federalist government effectively dissolved the state governments emblematic of the federalist system of the former United States, the historic state divisions which remained were referred to as "faithful states". The devolved state of Kentucky for instance, referred to itself officially as "the Faithful Commonwealth of Kentucky" in 1883. The term fell out of use by the 1890s as the Federalist government departed completely from federalism and forged a national identity that shifted attention away from regional differences towards the centralized government in Chicago, in an attempt to suppress regionalist and separatist movements.
Notions of the Faithful Nine remained throughout the remainder of the Federalist United Commonwealth's existence. American unionists envisioned the United Commonwealth as the cradle of American-styled republican democracy, and would serve as the central region in a hypothetical North American Union which would encompass the majority of the North American continent.
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United Commonwealth articles