According to Wikipedia (not the most reliable source, I realize), the first known use of the term “United States of America” came from a letter written by an aide to General George Washington on January 2, 1776—a little over 248 years ago. Stephen Moylan’s letter to Washington’s “aide-de-camp” Joseph Reed talked about a proposed mission to Spain seeking help to defeat the Redcoats. Moylan proposed to make the trip "with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain".
Later in 1776 (April 6th to be exact), the first public appearance of the phrase reportedly occurred in a Williamsburg, Virginia newspaper called The Virginia Gazette. An anonymous essay included “United States of America” for the first time in print.
The framers of our Constitution envisioned a robust society with the free expression of competing ideas—but they also tried to construct a governmental framework that would foster consensus and compromise. Now, 235 years after those founding documents were put in place, it seems that common agreement on what’s best for the nation is a hopeless dream.
Maybe instead of tearing down our history, we should reflect on the basic principles that caused our forebears to explicitly place the “United” in the “United States of America”.