"The post was essential to this experimental new union. Other than conducting foreign affairs, the federal government's power was minimal at best and, within the prickly new states, so volatile an issue that it had jeopardized the signing of the Constitution. Indeed, until the Civil War officially settled the matter, many Americans would say 'the United States are' rather than 'is.' (For the same reason, many modern historians prefer to speak of the 'union' or 'republic' rather than the 'nation' when referring to the country during the antebellum era, on the grounds that although America was a state, a self-governing political entity, it was not yet a nation, a tightly knit people who embrace a common culture.)" (29-30)