On the United States of America Being the UNITED States of America

Yes, but it was always united by choice and not via the barrel of a Gatling gun. Or at least that's how it was prior to Lincoln coming along (the fact that Rhode Island, Virginia, and New York each insisted upon strong secession stipulations prior to their signing the Constitutional, the fact that New England almost seceded on three separate occasions in the early 19th Century, the fact that Maryland, New Jersey, and Delaware strongly considered forming their own confederacy; The Central Confederacy, etc.).