in a state

I'm still irked at the time Stephen Fry posed a gotcha trivia question to the effect that the US had only 46 states because the other four are called commonwealths. I'm in the Commonwealth of Virginia right now, and it's a state. I see road signs saying it's State Law to yield to pedestrians, and ones on how to contact the State Police. It's a state.

It's also a state, at least this part of it, where every other road is named for Stonewall Jackson. If you're not on Stonewall Jackson Road, you're on the Stonewall Jackson Highway. And, of course, the town square has a statue of a soldier on a tall pillar emblazoned "C.S.A. 1861-1865." Anyone wishing to undo memorials to the Confederacy around here will have a lot of work ahead of them.