192

CONDITION OF VERMONT.

The people inhabiting that portion of New England long called the New Hampshire Grants, had organized a State government under the name of Vermont early in the year 1776;1 had issued a Declaration of Independence, in January following,2 and, in April, had petitioned Congress for admission into the Confederation, but unwilling to offend New Hampshire, Massachusetts and New York, which laid claim to the soil and jurisdiction of the region, Congress did not include them in the Union. For thirteen years they maintained their independence and State organization and were not surpassed by the inhabitants of any other Commonwealth in their devotion to the principles of the Revolution.

Finally, in October, 1790, the boundary dispute between Vermont and New York was amicably settled,* and, early in January of the following year, a convention assembled at Bennington, for the purpose of ratifying the Constitution. It was urged by the Anti-Federalist members that the State ought not to be obliged to assume any portion of the public debt or make any sacrifice for the sake of entering the Union, because the interests of Vermont in the federal government were entirely indirect and it had always been treated as an enemy by

1 For the proceedings of the Vermont Constitutional convention, see Collection of the Vermont Historical Society, I, 1-56. 2 January 15, 1777; Id., 43-47.

3 For the documents relating to the boundary controversies, see Slade's, Vermont Papers.

4 By the act of October 28, 1790, by which the Vermont legislature directed the payment of $30,000, to be made to the State of New York; Slade, 193.

5 The Proceedings of this Convention are given in the Records of the Governor and Council of the State of Vermont, III, (1875) Appendix, I, 464, et seq. Thomas Chittenden was chosen President and Moses Robinson, Vice-President. The Proceedings of the Convention are also given in the Vermont Gazette, January 10 to February 14, 1791. It assembled January 6, and adjourned on the 10th.

INDEPENDENCE OF VERMONT.

193

Congress. Moreover, by maintaining its independence and by acting the part of a neutral between Great Britain. and the United States, between which war might soon break out again, it would be relieved of the vast expense of membership in the Union. Congress ought first to assume the revolutionary debt of the State and to ratify its boundary treaty with New York. Though ratification might ultimately be made, the State should not rush forward uninvited into the Union. One Anti-Federalist member urged adjournment till October, by which time the electors in the State could be consulted.

To all these objections the Federalists made the very reasonable reply, that the State could not maintain its independence, for it would be a position which must ultimately prove untenable; nor did the friends of the Constitution neglect to assert that it was only in those towns of the State remote from every channel of intelligence, that the people entertained groundless jealousies toward the Constitution; the freemen of the State at large were in favor of immediate ratification. The ten amendments which had been added to the Constitution, it was said, were to be attributed to a spirit of delay and caution. To the question whether ratification would include the amendments, it was answered, though clearly inaccurately, that, by the proceedings in Rhode Island, ratification would include them. On the tenth of January, the Constitution was ratified by a vote of one hundred and five ayes to four nays,1 and in February following, Congress admitted Vermont into the Union,2 as "a new and entire member of the United States of America."

1 For the ratification see Documentary History, III, 371. Slade's Papers, 194; and Records of the Governor and Council of the State of Vermont, III, 481.

2 February 8, 1791; Statutes at Large, I, 191.

194

CELEBRATIONS OVER VERMONT.

When, three days after the vote on ratification, the news reached Albany, fourteen guns were fired from Fort Hill in honor of the event. Not until the eighth of March was the ratification celebrated in Vermont, when, at Rutland, the accession to the Union was observed with pleasing ceremonies. At six o'clock in the morning, the Federal Standard was raised, with fifteen stripes, and emblazoned with two stars, representing Vermont and Kentucky. Fifteen toasts were drunk and the ceremonies came to an end with the singing of the Federal song.1 The accession of Vermont made the Union both complete and compact and brought into one nation the people of all the English colonies which had participated in the Revolution. The friends of the new government now had ample cause for rejoicing; all the States of the original Confederation were once more united, and Vermont had joined them.2

The convention of Vermont was the fourteenth and last of those which ratified the original Constitution. The period of ratification extended from the third of December, 1787, when Delaware assembled, till the tenth of January, 1791, when Vermont adjourned, an aggregate of one year, two months and fourteen days, during which conventions were in session. The first and the last continued each five days. The longest session was in Rhode Island, which, during the two meetings of its convention, was in session sixty-five days. The next in order of

1 A part of one of the verses ran: Come every Federal son,

Let each Vermonter come,

And take his glass long live great Washington.

Then each shout as he says,

Federal Huzza.

See the Vermont Gazette, January 24, 1891.

2 Washington to Lafayette, June 30, 1890; Sparks, XII.

THE RATIFYING CONVENTIONS.

195

length were Pennsylvania, which was in session fortysix days, and New York, which was in session forty. With the exception of Rhode Island and Vermont, there was almost a continuous session of conventions from the time when Delaware assembled until North Carolina adjourned its first convention.

Thus it happened that two States were in session at the same time: Delaware and Pennsylvania, from the third to the seventh of December; and Pennsylvania and New Jersey, from the eleventh to the fifteenth, in 1787. With the opening of the year 1788, Georgia and Connecticut were in session on New Year's day, and Connecticut and Massachusetts on the ninth of January. During June, of that year, New Hampshire, Virginia and New York were in session together ten days, from the eighteenth to the twenty-seventh of the month, and New York and North Carolina, from the twenty-first to the twentysixth of July. New Hampshire, North Carolina and Rhode Island each held two sessions of their conventions, though, as has been related, for different reasons. the aggregate the States adopted four Bills of Rights, comprising ninety-three articles and, in addition, one hundred and forty-five amendments. In both the Bills and the amendments there were many repetitions, so that it is difficult, if not impossible, to state exactly how many separate provisions were proposed. Excepting those of Rhode Island, in the aggregate thirty-nine in number, all were considered by Congress when it made up its list.

In

Of the fourteen ratifying States, only three, Delaware, New Jersey and Georgia, adopted the Constitution unanimously and without proposing amendments.2 In the

1 See table, p. 197.

2 The Pennsylvania Convention adopted none, but the minority speedily adopted fourteen and the Harrisburg Convention twelve more, all of which were considered by Congress.

196

THE VOTE ON THE CONSTITUTION.

eleven ratifying States, whose action made the Constitution unquestionably secure,' the vote on ratification was seven hundred and forty-three ayes and four hundred and sixty-seven nays. Yet this vote of nearly two to one would greatly mislead us did we not know that a change of twenty-four votes in the seven hundred and forty-three, which gave us the Constitution, would have caused its rejection, and the narrow margin of defeat seems the more startling when upon further examination, we discover that a change of two votes in New York, of six, each, in New Hampshire and Virginia and of ten in Massachusetts, would have caused this calamity.

Including the conventions of North Carolina, Rhode Island and Vermont, the vote stood, in the aggregate, ten hundred and seventy-five for the Constitution and five hundred and seventy-eight against it, or a majority of nearly two to one. It is only within recent years that an attempt has been made to discover the distribution of the popular vote on the Federal Constitution. The exact registry can never be known, but careful research has discovered what counties were federal at this critical time.2 Proceeding on the assumption that, in the aggregate, the delegates represented the wishes of their constituents; and, considering the varying size of the districts represented, it may be concluded that, taking the States together, the districts did not vary from one another greatly in population. We are led to the conclusion that the proportions of the popular vote favorable and unfavorable to the Constitution were fairly well indicated by the votes of the delegates in the conventions. If this

1 That is including North Carolina, Rhode Island and Vermont. 2 In Appendix C, to Mr. Libby's monograph on The Geographical Distribution of the Vote, federal and anti-federal counties in all States including Vermont, Kentucky and Tennessee are shown in detail,