Notice the text you highlighted, "United States." That's plural, not singular. It's multiple states, not one. And although the document does use the word "nation" in reference to foreign nations, it never once refers to the plurality of the states that are united as a nation.
“...legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,'
thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of
the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.”
― Thomas Jefferson,
Letters of Thomas Jefferson
“We took the liberty to make some enquiries concerning the ground of their pretensions to make war upon
nations who had done them no injury, and observed that we considered all mankind as our friends who had done us no wrong, nor had given us any provocation.
The Ambassador [of Tripoli] answered us that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.
{
Letter from the commissioners, John Adams & Thomas Jefferson, to John Jay, 28 March 1786}”
― Thomas Jefferson,
Letters of Thomas Jefferson
“If
a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”
― Thomas Jefferson
When called upon to draft a message for George Washington's fourth annual message to Congress, Thomas Jefferson produced the following paragraphs:
The interests of
a nation, when well understood, will be found to coincide with their moral duties. Among these it is an important one to cultivate habits of peace and friendship with our neighbors. To do this we should make provision for rendering the justice we must sometimes require from them. I recommend therefore to your consideration Whether the laws of the Union should not be extended to restrain our citizens from committing acts of violence within the territories of
other nations, which would be punished were they committed within
our own.—And in general the maintenance of a friendly intercourse with foreign nations will be presented to your attention by the expiration of the law for that purpose, which takes place, if not renewed, at the close of the present session.
In execution of the authority given by the legislature, measures have been taken for engaging some artists from abroad to aid in the establishment of our mint; others have been employed at home; provision has been made of the requisite buildings, and these are now putting into proper condition for the purposes of the establishment. There has been also a small beginning in the coinage of the half dismes and Cents, the want of small coins in circulation calling our first attentions to them. - Thomas Jefferson, draft written for George Washington's fourth annual message to Congress, October 15, 1792
[1]
Jefferson later re-wrote the first paragraph of the message, prefacing his revision, "Instead of the paragraph 'The interests of a nation &c. – within our own,' formerly proposed, the following substitute is thought better."
All observations are unnecessary on the value of peace with
other nations. It would be wise however, by timely provisions, to guard against those acts of our citizens, which might tend to disturb it, and to put ourselves in a condition to give that satisfaction to foreign nations, which we may sometimes have occasion to require from them. I particularly recommend to your consideration the means of preventing those aggressions by our citizens on the territory of
other nations, and other infractions of the law of Nations, which furnishing just subject of complaint, might endanger our peace with them.—And in general the maintenance &c.
[2]
Washington delivered the address with Jefferson's revised first paragraph and original second paragraph. Jefferson later expressed a similar sentiment in his own Second Inaugural Address:
We are firmly convinced, and we act on that conviction, that with nations, as with individuals, our interests soundly calculated, will ever be found inseparable from our moral duties; and history bears witness to the fact, that
a just nation is taken on its word, when recourse is had to armaments and wars to bridle others.
[3]
Thomas Jefferson included the phrase, "The interests of a nation, when well understood, will be found to coincide with their moral duties" in a draft he wrote for George Washington's fourth annual message to Congress.
www.monticello.org
Jefferson, Arch-AntiFederalist that he was, made it quite clear we were a Nation.
There's much more out there from the Founders, but you know better anyway, you are just pretending otherwise.
